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Elon Musk's Twitter Outage: What Went Wrong? · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:02
  Welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast where we explore the
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  latest news and updates on the companies associated with one of
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  the most Visionary minds of our time, Elon Musk.
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  And in this episode, we'll be discussing the recent Twitter,
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  outage the left users unable to access links or images on the
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  platform and the implications of the incident for the company and
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  its stakeholders, the outage was caused by a technical glitch
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  that brought down much of Twitter's internal tools, as
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  well as its public facing apis. It has raised concerns about the
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  technical infrastructure and vulnerabilities on the platform
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  which have been compounded by recent layoffs and the shutdown
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  of free access to the Twitter API.
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  Now as we dive deeper into this, incident will be exploring the
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  challenges and opportunities facing Twitter.
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  And we'll also discuss the potential Solutions and
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  Innovation that could help the company regain its footing and
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  re-establish itself as a reliable platform for real-time
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  communication. And social engagement Twitter's
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  website is breaking in novel, new ways.
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  And The company managed to recover from its latest outage
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  within a couple of hours, the story behind how it broke
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  suggest. There are likely to be similar
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  problems in the near future on Monday morning, Twitter, users
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  logged on to find a Thicket of connected issues.
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  Clicking on links with no longer open them.
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  Instead users would see a mysterious error message.
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  Reporting that your current API plan does not include access to
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  this endpoint images, stop loading as well.
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  Other users reported that they could not access tweetdeck.
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  Check the Twitter own client for professional users.
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  Now, everything went crazy KS took over the timeline is users
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  tweeted about the outage and often Illustrated their points
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  with images and memes that no one can see because they
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  wouldn't even load. Now, the Twitter API has been
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  shut down for outside sources for certain things and in a
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  tweet, the company offered the vaguest of explanations of what
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  was happening. During this time, they said some
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  parts of Twitter May not be working as expected right now.
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  We made an internal change that had some unintended
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  consequences. Now, the changing question was
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  part of a project to shut down free access to the Twitter API
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  on February 1st. The company announced it will no
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  longer support free access to its API which effectively ended
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  the existence of third-party clients and dramatically limit.
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  The ability of outside research has to study the network.
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  In a sign of just how deep Elon musk's cuts to the company of
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  been, only one site. Reliability Engineers, been
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  staffed on the project and on Monday, then engineer meeting
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  bad configuration change. The basically broke the Twitter
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  API now the change had cascading consequences inside the company
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  bringing down much of Twitter's internal tools along with the
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  public facing apis on slack. Engineer's responded with
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  variations of crap and Twitter is down the entire thing as they
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  scrambled to fix the problem. And we think Elon Musk was mad
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  about this, a small Epi change had massive, ramifications musk
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  tweeted later in the day after Twitter investor, Mark Anderson
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  posted a screenshot showing the company's API.
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  Failures were trending on the site.
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  The code stack is extremely brittle For No Good Reason.
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  Ilan said, will ultimately need a complete rewrite.
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  Now, they've had non-stop layoffs for the company with
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  only 100 or 500 50. Full-time Engineers now now,
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  Current employees are sympathetic to that view, which
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  places, at least part of the blame for Twitter's problems on
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  technical failures. That predate musk's ownership of
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  the company. And the fail whale became an
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  icon of the old Twitter for a reason.
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  There's so much Tech debt for Twitter 1.0 if you make a change
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  right now, everything breaks, that's what a current employee
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  said. Still, when musk took over the
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  company, you promise to dramatically improve the speed
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  and stability of the site and is associate screen, the existing
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  staff for their Technical prowess, ultimately cutting
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  thousands of people working who were deemed not technical enough
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  to succeed under musk's leadership but non-stop layoffs,
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  have left the company with under five hundred and fifty
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  full-time, engineer's, and just as former employees had
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  predicted from the start, these losses have made Twitter
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  increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic.
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  Outages Monday's, configuration chains was at least the six
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  high-profile service outage at Twitter.
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  The Year in January, Twitter, suffered an outage that lasted
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  for more than two hours and affected the site's mobile app,
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  as well as its web and API services.
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  In February Twitter, experience issues with posting tweets and
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  messages as well as notifications and likes.
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  And in March, a system irregularity, cause issues with
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  Twitter's ad platform in April, Twitter experience, a widespread
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  outage that affected users, worldwide for over an hour.
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  And in July Twitter experience, an outage that caused it, Issues
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  with notifications and finally the most out of recent outage on
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  Monday and this type of outage has become so frequent that I
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  think we're all numb to. It said, one of the current
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  employees at Twitter and those are only the service outages.
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  There's other issues that are going on to such as the one that
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  led musk's tweets to be made more visible on the timeline
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  than any other user which have also Royal the user base.
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  People got upset about that and in many ways, Monday's outage
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  represented, the culmination of musk's leadership at the
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  Japanese. So far the single-minded effort
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  to cut costs on his forty. Four billion dollar purchase.
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  He's been slashing the staff in a reducing Twitter's free
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  offerings and this paved a way for a single engineer to be
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  staffed on a huge project. One that is linked to several
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  critical interconnected systems that both users and employees
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  depend on and with few knowledgeable workers on hand to
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  restore service, it took Twitter all morning to fix the problem.
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  They were losing money during that time and this is what
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  happens when you fire 90. Percent of the company, one of
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  the current employees set as well.
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  Now, Twitter has technical debt to it's not just the recent
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  layoffs, the have left Twitter, vulnerable to these outages, the
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  company's technical debt or the cost of maintaining outdated or
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  inefficient code. And hardware systems has been a
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  long-standing issue as one employee notes.
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  There is so much Tech debt from Twitter 1.0 that if you make a
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  change right now, everything breaks Twitter a struggle
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  struggle to keep up with its growth.
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  And the demand for its users resulting in a system that is
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  coupled together with Legacy and spaghetti code, and outdated
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  technology, the company's internal systems and tools are
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  often unstable and unreliable as well.
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  And there is a constant fear of things breaking down to make
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  matters, worse. Twitter has been slow to invest
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  in upgrading infrastructure and modernizing its code base.
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  The company has been criticized for prioritizing new features
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  and products over stability and reliability.
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  And, as a result Twitter's been Plagued by outages and technical
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  issues for years in 2019. The company experienced a
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  massive outage less it for several hours, and affected
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  users around the world. The outage was caused by a
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  server. Configuration change that went
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  wrong according to the company and last year, Twitter suffered,
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  several outages that cause issues with tweets, direct
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  messages and notifications. The company blamed the issues on
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  an inadvertent change. We made to our internal systems.
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  And now with the recent layoffs in the shutdown, The free access
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  to the API. The company is facing serious.
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  Technical challenges again. Now Twitter said Ilan, said that
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  the code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason and
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  will require a full rewrite. And we're not sure what
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  language, they're going to use for this new rewrite, but it
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  will be a modern rewrite not using the Legacy code will
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  probably rewrite it from scratch.
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  So, where does Twitter go from here?
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  Have a companies clearly facing seven.
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  Dictated to get challenges both in terms of his technical
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  infrastructure and its business model, must cost, cutting
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  measures have helped the company's bottom line, make more
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  money, but they have also left Twitter, vulnerable to outages
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  and technical issues throughout the time.
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  He's been there. Now, at the same time, Twitter's
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  facing intense competition, from other social media platforms,
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  Tick-Tock Facebook. And the company's user base has
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  been stagnant for years in a struggle, to attract new users.
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  And An existing ones except Woody Allen.
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  Took the helm more users started joining up to see what the whole
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  parade was about, and what the drama was about over on Twitter.
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  Now address these challenges Twitter's will need to make
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  significant investments in technical infrastructure and
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  modernize its code base. The company will also need to
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  develop new features and products that will attract users
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  and keep them at gauge for future times.
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  Now. And perhaps, more importantly,
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  Twitter will need to re-evaluate its business model in Find new
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  ways to generate money. The company is reliance and
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  advertising has proven to be a double-edged sword as it has
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  both fueled the company's growth and left it vulnerable to
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  fluctuations in the advertising Market.
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  One possible solution is for Twitter to develop new revenue
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  streams such as paid subscriptions or premium
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  features for users. And the company is already begun
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  experimenting with paid features.
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  The new check marks of course, exclusive content from different
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  creators with a pay wall another Possibility for Twitter is to
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  embrace its role as a platform for real-time communication to
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  develop new products and features that cater to that
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  role. For example, the company can
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  develop new tools for live streaming or real-time
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  collaboration, or could focus on building a stronger Community
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  around certain topics or interests.
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  Ultimately the future of Twitter will depend on its ability to
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  adapt to changing needs of its users in the broader social
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  media landscape and the company will need to strike a balance
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  between Innovation and Ability between growth and reliability.
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  And perhaps more importantly, Twitter will need to
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  re-establish itself as a platform that people trust and
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  rely on and is stable the company's recent outages and
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  technical issues have eroded user confidence in this platform
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  and it will take a lot of time and effort to regain some of
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  those users trust as one current employee notes.
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  There's so much potential here, Twitter could be an amazing
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  platform, but it needs to invest in a sense.
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  Structure and its people if it's going to realize its potential.
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  So in the end, the fate of Twitter will be decided by the
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  company's ability to overcome its technical debt.
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  Adapt to changing needs of its users and regain the trust of
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  its Community. It's a tall order, but a Twitter
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  can rise to the challenge. It has the potential to be a
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  powerful force for real-time communication and social
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  engagement in the years to come. Thank you for tuning in to the
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  Elon Musk podcast brought to you by stage. 0 Productions, and
• 10:55
  hosted by me will Walden. We hope you've enjoyed today's
• 10:58
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