The Chaser Report - Hardcore Twitterography

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Like Twitter, The Chaser has decided to go hardcore. If you want to survive in this brutal online landscape, you've got to be willing to take a few months severance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. I'm Charles Firth and with me back again is Domnice. Hello, Charles. Yes, what a lovely episode it was. I just wanted to listen to you and Andrew talking about Donald Trump's side. I didn't even come yesterday.

Yeah, but you did listen to it. I was listening to it just before we started talking. Admittedly, that was just a check that my recording was working. but it sounds lovely. It sounds really good. I'm definitely going to listen to every moment of that later today. Oh, great. Oh, right.

I will. Charles, look, I've got to say, I've got an ultimatum for you, okay? I just want to lay something out there. Yeah. It's a big, it's a big realization that I've come to. You've got a big decision to make, and you've got 24 hours to make it. The chaser has to evolve, okay? It's got to evolve into chaser 2.0.

That's what we need. We need chaser 2.0. It's going to be a lot of hard work, okay? it's going to mean very long hours, thankless tasks to build something incredibly special. We're going to get a lot of engineers in here, make the website really sing. Yeah,

hardcore. Hardcore. I'm talking 12 hour days at the absolute bare minimum. I'm talking commitment. I'm talking regular abuse, both on the company Slack and on Twitter. Okay. From the boss.

The question I have for you is, do you want to accept this vision? And stay around for an extremely challenging period ahead for no more money. Yes. Or do you want three months full pay as severance? You've got to decide right now. But hang on, hang on, hang on. I'm the boss of the chaser.

Like, this sounds ideal to me. This chaser 2.0 sounds ideal. Am I the boss in this scenario or are you the boss? No, I'm not the boss either. You see, Elon Musk paid an offer. Oh, he's in an acquisition phase He figures he's finished with Twitter And he's made the same offer to us

That he's made to Twitter Oh, right Basically, stick around if you want And it's going to be very hard Or three months full pay off you go That's what he said to the entire Remaining Workforce at Twitter Stay or here is a quarter of your annual salary

To fuck off now Why would anyone stick around To be hardcore with that fuck turd like who on earth no one is going to accept that offer

so you say that you say that wouldn't it have been useful this is why we need to work with Elon wouldn't have been useful if you'd

been in the room when he announced that plan because that is exactly what happened I have a huge number of Twitter employees went yep

actually we were thinking of quitting so the three months sounds great Elon that's great even though you've just decided that all of us get to keep our jobs

now we will we will gladly take the redundancy. Thanks, buddy. And so they've had to actually wind it back and sit down with... Oh, really? The world's richest man. Yeah, the world's richest man. The boss of Tesla and SpaceX and all these other businesses as well

has had to take the time to sit down individually with key people saying, yeah, actually, no, we really don't want you to quit, have more money. He's completely screwed it up again because everyone wants to leave because they can see it's a total shit show. Dom, yes. He's a genius, right? He is a genius. He is a genius.

Oh, everyone knows it. A self-proclaimed genius. Although I do notice today that it's come out that he doesn't actually have that degree in physics that he claims to have had. Awkward. But, you know, but maybe he's such a genius that he didn't have to do a degree in physics to know all about. He could have taught the degree in physics without having done a degree in physics.

Exactly, because he's a genius. But don't you think, like one of the key traits of a genius is that you learn from your mistakes, right? So maybe the first thousand times that he says something and then has to backtrack on it several hours later, you know, after that, you'd go, oh, there's a bit of a theme here, a bit of a pattern.

Maybe don't just follow my cat. Maybe I should just shut the fuck up and not fucking open my mouth because every time I open my mouth and make an ultimatum, I have to then backtrack on it. Like, wouldn't you just sort of fucking, after a while,

sick of being wrong a hundred percent of the time? You would, Charles, unless you were someone who has been in court this week. I don't know whether you've heard about the Tesla Compensation Plan lawsuit. While he's been offering everyone redundancy at Twitter, which they've been gleefully taking, he's also been taking the witness stand in Delaware's Court of Chancery, because what happened in 2018 is that Tesla offered him basically a massive incentive plan for his compensation and if he hit the goals

he was going to be worth $50 billion they were going to give him $50 billion as his CEO pay he got that he got all that money and now he's getting sued by shareholders who are saying

no this man is a disaster he's not even there most of the time so he's having to argue in court that he's worth $50 billion for part of his time at the same time as he's active destroying Twitter by being so involved.

Like, the best thing you can do for Twitter is be there less at this point, surely. It's such a Dr. Evil sum of money, isn't it? I am worth $50 billion. Which he got. But I think you've mischaracterized that court case because I do know a little bit about the, I remember back in 2018 when he made himself that offer. That was not an offer made to him. He came up with that idea.

He said, oh, look, if I can pump this stock up, unrealistically enough, you'll then owe me $50 billion. And then he got all his bros, he went on Reddit and Twitter, pumped up the stock, and that's how he made. So, I mean, that is a genius manoeuvre. Yeah, well, actually, that came up in the court case, Charles. They played audio of Musk admitting back in 2019 that essentially the pay package evolved by him negotiating against himself. Yes. Which is why he got so much more. And this is what the shareholders are saying was unfair to them.

Unjust enrichment is the allegation. And look, he's clearly excellent at negotiating against himself. Yes. If he gave himself the offer of three months severance pay or hang around and have a shit life, he would take the shit life every time. Well, I feel like, you know, his whole management style is negotiating against himself, isn't it?

Because he puts these ultimatums out and then a few hours later has to be backtracking on it. Like, there needn't be anyone else in the room. Like, you could just do that on his own. It's amazing. And you know how he got, he had to step down as the CEO of Tesla because he was tweeting in a way that influenced the stock. He said he was going to take it private.

Yes, he got all into trouble with the SEC. He did. Do you know what his job title was after he had to step down as CEO? His actual job title. Because at Twitter, it's chief tweed. It'll be something like that. It'll be like chief guru officer or something like that. Pretty much.

It'll be like. Even sillier than Chief Guru officer. Okay, it's like 69, bro, or something. Because he's an edgy guy. He loves 69. 69, like, sex is cool. Didn't he sell a product from Tesla for like $42.69? It's like, anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The title was Techno King. Ah! I mean, he really is, he's the person who you would tease at school. and then look back on and go, I'm glad I tease that guy. Even though he's now the richest person in the world, I wasn't wrong to make fun of him and ruin his confidence.

The Chaser Report, less news, less often. So anyway, he now owns The Chaser. I mean, I don't even know how this happened. Yes. I think it's because our Twitter name got stuck as Elon Musk fondles dogs because he removed the ability to change your name. if you had a verified account. Unfortunately, ours was, it was like, you know, the wind changed and your face got stuck.

Ours was Elon Musk Fondell's dogs at the time. So maybe he figured that was the only way to change the name back. Well, look, I think this is good news because, like, we both own shares in the chaser, don't we? That's true, we do. I mean, we did. It's more that we did. We must be a private, Charles. Incredibly rich at the moment.

I mean, you would think that, but he actually bought it for its fair market value. Oh, no! Never sell anything for it, especially when it comes to the chaser. Yeah, no, basically... You didn't accept Bitcoin. You didn't accept those FTT tokens. No, I did take doge coin. No, he basically, he worked out that the value of the chaser was the sum of the inflatable avocados that we have in stock.

Oh, no, but that's quite a lot. Minus 69.420% for it being a stupid idea. Okay, so we've got to decide whether we're going to go hardcore, not see our families. Yeah. Not see our families. No, that's actually, that's not so bad. Yeah. Or take three months' pay.

The problem is three months times not very much pay is not very much pay still. Yeah. Well, the other thing is another thing that came up in the court case. Do you know what the average salary at Tesla is for his own gigafactory? The average salary? Does that include all the slaves in Afghanistan and the Congo who mine the, lithium? Oh, I imagine, no, they're off the books.

You'd have them off the books, wouldn't you? You'd have to. Well, then I reckon, if you're an engineer at Tessie, you'd be pulling what's around a grand a year, wouldn't you? The average pay at Tesla, according to the plaintiff's lawyers in this court case, is $40,000 US dollars. What? No.

What? While Elon got $50 billion. Does he, what does he use? Does he use, like, Fiverr or something to build his car? I just use DMs people on Twitter and does, you want $40,000? to work at Tesla. Task rabbit. Yeah, yeah.

Wow, no wonder they keep exploding and, you know, you can't wind down the window in an emergency. If you paid Tesla employees more than 40 grand, maybe they'd be able to recognize traffic lights. Because you and I had the same experience test driving them, which is lovely in many ways. But the autopilot could not figure out what a stop sign was or a red light. Yes. Well, very much around Sydney, where we are a city of tunnels, very a very attractive. attractive traffic tunnels. It's our motor snowable landmark now.

And yeah, on the new tunnels, they always have the speed limit in these red signs above. And the Tesla always interprets those red signs as traffic lights because they're sort of illuminated in red. And so it just constantly stops on these freeways. Which is very safe. It's the most hideous experience. And then also I found the overhead things where you drive under something, there's like arrow that's green or red saying where you can go on that lane that's a stop sign as well oh great i suppose that he'll interpret a red car as a stop sign yeah yeah but the good news charles

i mean i i just want to bring this home because it's bleak it's pretty bleak i mean we love twitter we spend a lot of time on twitter but have you been on mastodon this new replacement the open source version oh yes anyone can start their own server the chaser could have their own you know chase a MasterDon server. I'm so we probably do already. I've signed on and it's fantastic. I've now got 10 followers. Really?

I've got tons of followers. I don't know what you're doing wrong. Yeah. I've only posted once. Yeah. I've got, uh, let's just have a look at my MasterDon. 345. Ha!

It's like shit, Dom. You got 3,45. What are you doing right? 145? It's basically like it's quieter than my parties. It's like Twitter but worse somehow. Yeah. It's actually got fewer people than most of my party.

Um, yeah, which is, which is a bit awkward. The thing that, so I'm at Charles, at Oz.S.com. Oh, I should follow. I'm going to try and steal some of your followers. I'm, I'm Dom Knight at masteredon. Dot social. And the weird thing about my account is that I actually set it up in 2017 or 2018 or something and didn't ever use it.

Ahead of your time. Yes. Yes. And I saw it. I used it for like a day and thought, well, I never use this again. This is stupid. So the thing about, so Twitter at the moment is basically, every tweet is about, Twitter, right?

Yes. Very, very self-involved at the moment. You go on Mastodon. Every toot is about Mastodon. It's sort of exactly like Twitter, except it's about a really obscure social network that you don't quite understand. And so just every single toot is, you know, trying to explain. I can't call it a toot.

That's terrible. It's what they're called. They're called dudes. I'm looking at your account here. And your last piece, you put up your piece from the shot. about Twitter. And you got two likes, Charles? I did not get two likes.

That is completely untrue. You got like... Six retweets and... I got nine likes and... Oh no, I got 16 likes and nine retweets. Clearly there's another Charles... Master Don. I don't think...

Maybe that's just from your instance. This is the thing. You got six re-blogs and two favourites that I can see. Well, that's just fake news, Don. You know what, Charles? I've got to say, just scrolling through this. Also, because the replies, someone's written like a thousand word reply to your thing.

I really miss Twitter going through Mastodon. Yeah, we've decided. We've actually, we had a meeting about Mastodon, the Chaser, so, you know, should we go on it and things like that? And we will, we'll put stuff on it, but we sort of think, we're actually setting up her own. I don't know whether you've been to the Chaser website recently, Dom. I haven't.

But it looks identical now to Twitter, right? And our ideas, we're just going to steal that, business model and do it ourselves. The only problem is, and the idea is you'll be able to log in and actually, you know, comment underneath each other. Oh, great. Look at the homepage. Like, it actually, it's actually been like a six-month project.

It's very fortuitous that Twitter's about to die. But the thing is that we still haven't quite got up and running the whole other people can comment. Oh, wow. It really does. It does. It does. It does.

Yeah, it does. Yeah. And I do remember the last time, uh, that we had comments on on the Chase website. You weren't involved in it back then and I was running it. It quickly got abusive and turned into mental health health. But I'm sure that won't happen this time. No, no.

I'm sure you won't have to spend a lot of time moderating to make sure that people aren't literally, you know, brutalising one another to the point of self-harm. Well, we're going to use the model. This is why Cam has been sort of looking so bedraggled because he also does all the computer programming for the Chaser as well as editing the Chaser. website and and he's been he's been hardcore like i said to him don't turn up unless you're doing

12 hours a day just reprogram the jacer website but the thing is so because the whole idea is to do it a bit like the way gawker did their comments second which is it's only after a while like if you once you all your comments are grayed out at first and then as you get more and more calmer from the community and get upvoted more in your comments, you then be able to write in black text and your comments get prioritised over other people's. So that's a way of sort of using AI and an algorithm to moderate the comments. Well, Charles, I started this conversation by joking that Elon Musk was going to buy the chase of it.

If this actually works, he probably will. Yes, he will. And then we can all go and relax. Because he won't fuck it up. But also, that in itself will be a satirical performance piece of a lifetime. Like, I kind of feel like Elon Musk is doing our work for us at the moment. Like, it's just so enjoyable to watch this car crash of a human being. I am.

I'm looking at the JAS website, and it's bizarre. It doesn't look like the JAS website anymore. No, that's right. Excellent. And I think that's just a quicker way of doing what Elon's doing and destroying the things people like about our internet product. So, well done to you and the team. All right.

Our kids from road with part of the ACASTCredit Network will catch you tomorrow. Yeah. We've got to turn up every day, do we? It's so hardcore. 12 hours a day. Unless you want the three-month severance pay. Yeah, I don't think that'll be enough. I've got a family to feed.