Maximum Amazing | 1
发布时间 2023-05-01 07:01:00 来源
摘要
Twitter is at a crossroads. Its founder, Jack Dorsey, has stepped down from his role as CEO. The social media heavyweight is also under fire for alleged bias, censorship, and the roving army of bot accounts wreaking havoc on the site. In this moment of crisis, the only would-be savior to step up is also one of Twitter’s harshest critics: Elon Musk.Please support us by supporting our sponsors.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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This was not the place where you'd expect to find the CEO of one of the biggest tech companies on the planet. Sure, it was in San Jose, California, the heart of Silicon Valley, and Brett Taylor looked the part with his confidence smile in receding hairline. Brett was the co-CEO of Salesforce, and before that he was an ex-Google and Facebook employee and a graduate of Stanford. But on this evening, March 31, 2022, Brett found himself in an unexpected location, waiting for an unexpected guest.
这不是你会期待在这找到全球最大科技公司之一的CEO的地方。当然，这在硅谷的心脏——加利福尼亚州圣何塞，而布雷特·泰勒在衰退发际线上自信的微笑给人留下了这种印象。布雷特是Salesforce的联席CEO，此前他曾任职于谷歌和Facebook，毕业于斯坦福大学。但在这个2022年3月31日的晚上，布雷特发现自己在一个意想不到的地方，等待着一个意外的客人。
San Jose is the heart of the tech industry, filled with sterile corporate architecture, palm trees, and strip malls. Deals often get done in glass panel conference rooms or in classic Silicon Valley restaurants like Bucks or Maderas. But not today. Brett whipped out his phone and fired off a text to two business associates. This wins for the weirdest place I've had a meeting recently. I think they were looking for an Airbnb near the airport. There are tractors and donkeys. He threw in an emoji of a man shrugging.
旧金山是科技产业的中心，充满着单调的公司建筑、棕榈树和商业中心。交易通常在玻璃砖会议室或类似Bucks或Maderas这样的经典硅谷餐厅中完成。
但今天不同。布雷特掏出手机，给两个商业伙伴发了一条短信：“这是我最近参加会议的最奇怪的地方。我想他们正在寻找机场附近的Airbnb。这里有拖拉机和驴子。”他还加上了一个耸肩的表情符号。
Besides proximity to a landing strip, it's likely the privacy of this rustic Airbnb was a major selling point. It was far from the prying eyes of tech reporters who'd salivate at the chance to be in the room for this meeting. Brett Taylor was at this particular Airbnb surrounded by tractors and donkeys, not in his role as the co-CEO of Salesforce. He was there in his role as the chair of the board of the social media company, Twitter. He and Twitter CEO Farag Agrawal needed somewhere safe to meet with one of tech's most notorious power players.
除了靠近机场着陆带外，这个乡村风格的Airbnb很可能是由于其隐私保护的特点而成为主要卖点。它远离了那些贪婪的科技记者，他们渴望有机会进入这个会议室观看会议。Brett Taylor此时身处于这个特定的Airbnb房间里，周围环绕着拖拉机和驴子，而不是在他作为Salesforce的联合首席执行官的角色下。他此时是身为社交媒体公司Twitter董事会主席的角色出现在那里的。他和Twitter首席执行官Farag Agrawal需要一个安全的地方和科技界最臭名昭著的强权人物之一会面。
Less than a minute after Brett sent his text, he received a response from their guest. Awesome. Maybe Airbnb's algorithm thinks you love tractors and donkeys. Who doesn't? Brett didn't respond to that. Later, he received another text. On my way, they're in about 15 minutes. Brett spotted something in the distance and typed out a reply. An abandoned truck in case we want to start a catering business after we meet.
不到一分钟，布雷特发送短信后，他收到了客人的回复。太棒了。也许Airbnb的算法认为你喜欢拖拉机和驴。谁不喜欢呢？布雷特没有回应。后来，他又收到了一条短信。我已经出发了，大约15分钟就到了。布雷特看到远处有什么东西，然后回复了一条信息。有一辆废弃的卡车，我们见面后可以考虑开餐饮生意。
Brett was keeping things light and chummy as if all of this was friendly. Sounds like a post-apocalyptic movie set. Brett had to agree. Agreeing was probably in his best interest at the time because the man Brett was texting had been quietly buying Twitter stock and was now one of the company's largest shareholders. The man they were waiting to meet was Elon Musk. Never mind that the way Musk had accumulated his Twitter stock might have violated security's law.
Brett d尽量让气氛轻松愉快，好像这一切都是友好的。听起来像是一个世界末日的电影场景。Brett不得不同意这种说法。在那个时候，同意可能是他最明智的选择，因为Brett正在与一个曾默默地买入Twitter股票，并成为该公司最大的股东之一的人交往。他们等待见面的人是伊隆·马斯克。暂且不说马斯克积累Twitter股票的方法可能违反了证券法。
He had issued Brett and the rest of the board an ultimatum. Give him a board seat or eat either by Twitter or start a rival company. And that was why Brett and Farag were meeting with him at this Airbnb to hammer out a deal for Elon Musk to join the board and keep Twitter out of his grasp. As Brett watched the Donkeys' grays, he must have been asking himself a question. One a lot of people would soon be asking. What exactly was Elon's plan for Twitter?
他向布雷特和董事会的其他成员发出最后通牒。要么给他一个董事会席位，要么通过Twitter吃亏，或者开始一家竞争对手公司。这就是为什么布雷特和法拉格正在这个Airbnb与他会面，商讨一个交易，让伊隆·马斯克加入董事会，并让Twitter不再被他掌控。当布雷特观看驴子的灰色时，他一定在问自己一个问题，很多人很快会问的问题。伊隆对Twitter的计划到底是什么？
When news broke a few days later that Elon had become Twitter's largest shareholder and was set to join his board, perhaps no one was more surprised than the regular employees inside Twitter. Remember being in Slack at that point and there was a lot of discussion there. There were a lot of people who were not happy about the idea. Jim Redmond, a systems engineer in the San Francisco office, would find out about Elon's new stake in Twitter like most employees at the company. He found out on Twitter. He was willing to wait and see what kind of impact Elon would have. I didn't see him as a genius who could do no wrong. I didn't see him as a smoke blower. I saw him as an interesting guy. I didn't really see him as a monster or as a hero.
几天后，当消息传出埃隆成为Twitter最大的股东并将加入董事会，或许没有人比Twitter公司内部的普通员工更惊讶了。当时在Slack上讨论很多，有很多人并不喜欢这个想法。旧金山办事处的系统工程师吉姆·雷德蒙德就像公司的大部分员工一样，通过Twitter了解到了埃隆在Twitter的新股份。他愿意等待并观察埃隆的影响。我不认为他是一个不可能犯错的天才，也不认为他是个爱吹牛的人。我认为他是一个有趣的人物。我并没有将他视为怪物或英雄。
No one knew whether Elon was going to save Twitter or destroy it. And no one. Not the employees inside Twitter HQ. Not the board. Not the CEO. Not even Elon Musk himself could possibly predict how Elon's takeover of Twitter was going to play out. Because the drama that started at this Airbnb in what Elon joked looked like a post-apocalyptic movie set, went unfold over the next 12 months across boardrooms, courtrooms, and group chats.
没有人知道埃隆是要拯救推特还是毁掉它。没有任何人知道，不管是在推特总部的员工，董事会成员，CEO，还是埃隆·马斯克本人，都无法预测埃隆接管推特会如何发展。因为这场戏剧从一个看起来像末世电影场景的Airbnb开始，随后在接下来的12个月中，在董事会、法庭和群聊中演绎开来。
And it would put careers, fortunes, reputations, lives, and even the future of Twitter itself in jeopardy. From wondering, I'm David Brown, the host of Business Wars, and this is flipping the bird, Elon versus Twitter.
这将会危及职业生涯、财富、声誉、生命，甚至连 Twitter 的未来都会受到威胁。我是 David Brown，也是《商战》的主持人，这就是埃隆VS推特的故事——“给你一只鸟”（flipping the bird）。
On March 21, 2006, Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey sent a seemingly innocuous message out into the digital ether, just setting up my Twitter. At first glance, Twitter seemed more like a curiosity than a serious social media platform. But by 2022, Twitter had become one of the most influential social media platforms in the world. And Elon Musk, one of its most avid users.
在2006年3月21日，Twitter的创始人和首席执行官杰克·多西发了一条看似无伤大雅的信息到数字世界中，只是打算注册我的Twitter。初看Twitter似乎更像一个好奇心，而不是一个严肃的社交媒体平台。但到了2022年，Twitter已成为全球最具影响力的社交媒体平台之一，并且埃隆·马斯克成为其最狂热的用户之一。
For Elon, Twitter became his personal playground, a place to push the buttons of the entire world all at once, with seemingly little regard for the consequences. Elon had cemented his reputation as a volatile tech wonderkin who could push his companies to solve overwhelming challenges. Reusable rocket ships at SpaceX and sexy-looking electric cars at Tesla. He became the world's richest man. And Elon Musk turned a seeming obsession with Twitter into a crusade and a costly investment. But what is he trying to accomplish with his takeover of Twitter? This is our six-part series on Elon Musk's up and down high-stakes battle to take over Twitter. This is Episode 1. I'm Amazing.
对于伊隆来说，Twitter成为了他个人的游乐场，一个能够一次性推动整个世界的地方，似乎对结果关注甚少。伊隆巩固了自己作为一个充满波动性的科技天才的声誉，他能够推动他的公司去解决压倒性的挑战。SpaceX的可重复使用火箭和Tesla的时尚电动汽车。他成为了世界上最富有的人。伊隆·马斯克将他对Twitter的强烈关注转化为了一场十分昂贵的投资和追求。但他试图通过接管Twitter达到什么目的呢？这是我们关于伊隆·马斯克为接管Twitter而进行的高风险战斗的六部曲系列之一。这是第一集：“我很惊人”。
Water gently lapped the pristine sands of a beach in Hawaii. It was November 10, 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic had been raging around the world for nearly a year. But here, life seemed to carry on as usual. Jack Dorsey clad in a weathered St. Louis Cardinals hat, skimpy white shorts, and his trademark scraggly beard, took a stroll with a shirtless Sean Penn. Jack had made a habit of being seen in exotic locations while most of the world was subject to quarantine and isolation. He took work from home to an extreme, as only a multi-billionaire could. A couple of months earlier, he had been spotted on a yacht in the Hamptons with Jay-Z and Beyoncé. The pandemic had been an unmitigated global catastrophe, and yet for Jack Dorsey and much of the tech world, business had never been so good. People were stuck at home spending time on social media, watching shows on Netflix, ordering groceries online.
清澈的海水轻轻拍打着夏威夷海滩上的原始沙滩。时值2020年11月10日，新冠疫情已在全球肆虐了近一年。但是在这里，生活似乎照常进行。穿着凌乱的圣路易斯红雀帽子、露出短小的白色短裤和他的标志性胡须的杰克·多西和没有穿衣服的肖恩·潘一起漫步。大多数人被隔离和居家隔离时，杰克在异国情调的地方露面成了一种习惯。作为一名多亿万富翁，他将在家工作推向了极致。几个月前，他曾与Jay-Z和Beyoncé一起在汉普顿湾的游艇上被人发现。疫情是一场不可抗拒的全球灾难，但是对于杰克·多西和科技界的大部分人来说，他们的生意从未这么好过。人们被困在家里，花时间在社交媒体上，看Netflix上的节目，网购生活必需品。
Twitter saw massive traffic gains during COVID. To keep growing, they'd need more people. Lots more. So while other businesses were shutting down, Twitter and the rest of the tech world went on a hiring spree. Twitter's staff size increased 53% between 2019 and 2022. It was during this time that Jim Redmond joined Twitter. A systems engineer, he landed his dream job. I was excited because the Twitter is huge. It's Planet Scale Networking, it's Planet Scale Services, it's millions of people at once, billions of users or billions of accounts at least. So it's exciting to work on something that big and that has that much of an impact. And Jim's job was particularly important, incident management. So Queen Elizabeth dies, or there's a player who collapses on the field at a football game. When something big like that happens, there's always a huge spike of traffic, and we have to be able to handle it in a timely fashion that has minimal impact on end users. It's tricky, but it's never a dull moment. It was an exciting time to be at the company.
在COVID期间，Twitter的访问量大增。为了持续增长，他们需要更多的人。很多人。因此，在其他企业关闭的情况下，Twitter和其他科技企业开始大规模招聘。从2019年到2022年，Twitter的员工规模增长了53%。就在这个时候，吉姆·雷德蒙德加入了Twitter。作为一名系统工程师，他获得了自己的梦想工作。我很兴奋，因为Twitter很大。它是全球网络、全球服务，可以一次处理数百万人、数十亿用户或至少数十亿个帐户。因此，能在这么大、对人们影响这么大的项目上工作是很令人兴奋的。而吉姆的工作尤其重要，是事件管理。比如女王伊丽莎白去世，或是足球比赛中有球员倒地。当发生这样的大事时，总会有大量的流量，而我们必须及时处理，对终端用户的影响最小。这很棘手，但永远不会无聊。这是在公司工作的兴奋时刻。
And the increased traffic during the pandemic's lockdown gave fuel to Jack Dorsey's business ambitions. Our goal is to more than double our total annual revenue to over 7.5 billion in 2023. We're confident we can hit these goals, and we're confident they will make us even stronger, more valuable to you and people around the world. But even as Jack was touting a bright future for Twitter on investor calls, there were worries that the pandemic boom was simply papering over some major cracks in the business. I mean, in COVID, a lot of people were at home just like me looking for something to do. Eric Fraunhoffer had been working at Twitter since 2014. They were spending time on Twitter or buying things on Amazon, you know, from a short term perspective, it seemed like a pretty good bet that things were going to continue growing like they were. But Eric had seen the warning signs from early in his tenure at the company. When I joined Twitter, it wasn't profitable at all. We were burning through cash. And as the pandemic slowly wound down, Twitter's traffic slowed down with it. I think what happens is, you know, COVID starts to end. People just get back to normal, people are spending their time elsewhere.
在疫情封锁期间，交通量的增加给了杰克·多西的企业野心加油。我们的目标是在2023年将总年收入翻倍至75亿以上。我们有信心能够达到这些目标，并且我们相信这会让我们变得更加强大，对你和全世界的人更有价值。但是，即使在杰克在投资者电话会议上为Twitter描绘美好未来的同时，也有人担心疫情的繁荣只是掩盖了企业中的一些重大缺陷。我的意思是，COVID时期，很多人像我一样待在家里寻找事情做。埃里克·弗劳恩霍弗自2014年以来一直在Twitter工作。他们在Twitter上花时间或在亚马逊上购物，从短期来看，似乎继续像之前一样增长是一个相当不错的赌注。但是，从他加入公司的早期就看到了警告信号。当我加入Twitter时，它完全没有盈利。我们在烧钱。随着疫情逐渐结束，Twitter的流量也随之减少。我认为发生的事情是，你知道，COVID开始结束。人们回归正常，把时间花在其他地方上。
Jack's pledge to double business had always been optimistic. Now it looked hopelessly so. In the end, the growth didn't match the returns. Layoffs felt inevitable to me. None of this slowed Jack's glamorous world tour, but that started to look a lot less like someone who had it all figured out and a lot more like someone who was not paying attention. On the day in January 2021, when Donald Trump was banned from Twitter, Jack was on a secluded island in French Polynesia, looking like Tom Hanks in Castaway, beard and all. It always felt like Jack was off doing something else. The day-to-day work was being taken care of by the other people involved. I think over the years, Jack lost interest in running Twitter and he was more interested in crypto.
杰克誓言翻倍业务的计划一直很乐观。但是现在看来情况非常不妙。最终，增长没有达到回报。我觉得裁员是不可避免的。但对杰克来说，并没有减缓他的光鲜世界巡回演出。然而，这看起来更像是他没有关注的人。2021年1月唐纳德·特朗普被禁言推特的那一天，杰克就在法属波利尼西亚的一个隐蔽岛屿上，看起来像《荒岛余生》中的汤姆·汉克斯，满脸胡须。杰克总是感觉在做其他事情。日常工作由其他人负责。我认为多年来，杰克对经营Twitter失去了兴趣，而更感兴趣的是加密货币。
If some of Twitter's employees had gotten the impression that their boss was quiet quitting, well, Jack finally made it official. Breaking news this hour, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced he's stepping down. In a statement put out by Twitter this morning, Dorsey was quoted as saying that he had decided to leave Twitter because he believed the company is, quote, ready to move on from the company's founders, but he didn't provide any additional detail on why he decided to resign.
如果Twitter的一些员工得到了他们的老板正在安静地辞职的印象，那么杰克终于正式宣布了。本小时的新闻，Twitter的CEO杰克·多西宣布他即将离职。Twitter在今天发布的一份声明中引用他的话称，他决定离开Twitter，因为他相信公司已经准备好要摆脱创始人，但他没有提供任何关于为什么他决定辞职的额外细节。
To replace Jack, there was no traditional CEO search to fill the job. No outside candidates were seriously considered. Instead, the board picked the cheap technology officer, Parag Agrawal. He's the antithesis of Jack Dorsey, right? Jack Dorsey is kind of the billionaire as all of these famous friends. At Ludlow, a journalist for Bloomberg, extensively covered the succession drama. And at the time, Agrawal was a relative unknown. You know, he's listed on the company's websites and management, but he's ultra-focused on his role and what Twitter's doing technologically speaking.
为了取代杰克，没有传统的CEO搜索来填补这个工作。没有外部候选人受到严肃考虑。相反，董事会选择了廉价的技术官员帕拉格·阿格拉瓦尔。他是杰克·多尔西的反面人物，对吧？杰克·多尔西是那种与所有这些著名朋友为伴的亿万富翁。在彭博新闻社的路德洛报道了继任戏剧。当时，阿格拉瓦尔还是一个相对不知名的人物。你知道，他在公司的网站和管理中列得出来，但他非常专注于他的角色以及Twitter在技术方面所做的事情。
Parag was 37 when he assumed the top job at Twitter. He had joined the company in 2011 and worked his way up the corporate ladder. Parag publicly, Parag projected a much different persona than his predecessor. While Jack was off-trapsing around the globe with models and celebrities, Parag was every bit the family man. His social media presence was warm, open, and filled with photos of his wife and young son.
帕拉格在他37岁时成为了Twitter的高管。他在2011年加入了公司，并一步步爬上了公司的管理阶梯。与他的前任杰克不同的是，帕拉格公开展现了完全不同的个性。当杰克到全球各地与模特和名人闲逛时，帕拉格则是一个充满家庭情感的人。他的社交媒体存在感温暖、开放，充满了他和妻子以及年幼儿子的照片。
Jack didn't publicly discuss his reasons for leaving, but in his public resignation letter, he said his belief in Parag was, bone deep. To Jim, the systems manager who worked in incident management, Parag seemed to lack some of the key skills that a leader needs. He was definitely learning on the job. There was no question about that. He was not the best, most reassuring speaker because he had spent such a long time as an engineer that he hadn't really built up those public speaking kind of soft skills. So it wasn't always inspiring to hear from Parag.
杰克没有公开讨论离开的原因，但在他的公共辞职信中，他说他对帕拉格的信任是深入骨髓的。对于在事故管理方面工作的系统经理吉姆来说，帕拉格似乎缺乏领导所需的一些关键技能。他显然是在工作中学习的，这是毫无疑问的。他不是最好的、最令人放心的演讲者，因为他作为一名工程师已经花了很长时间，没有真正建立起那种公共演讲软技能。所以听帕拉格讲话并不总是令人振奋的。
And while Twitter was in a state of transition under Parag, Elon Musk saw an opening to, in his words, say, Twitter, the platform that allowed him to express these pearls of wisdom freely. I put the art in fart. Stop gendering memes. I mean, mimes. Just dropping some friends off at the pool. His tweets could be more than just off-color gags. One of his tweets, for example, had dumb joke about weed got him in trouble with the securities in exchange commission. When he tweeted that he had the money to take Tesla private at the high price of $420 a share, they ended up investigating him for potentially manipulating Tesla's stock price. Elon clearly loved tweeting, but it was arguably hurting his reputation.
在 Parag 的领导下，Twitter 正处于过渡状态，而 Elon Musk 发现了一个机会，他说，Twitter 让他自由表达这些智慧的珍珠。我把艺术放在了臭屁里。别性别化梗了。我的意思是，哑剧演员。只是送一些朋友去游泳池。他的推文不仅仅是色情笑话。例如，他的一条推文，关于大麻的愚蠢玩笑，让他在证券交易委员会处于麻烦之中。当他在推特上说他有资金以高价 $420 每股将特斯拉私有化时，他们开始调查他是否操纵了特斯拉的股价。显然，Elon 非常喜欢推特，但这也许正在损害他的声誉。
If he was worried about that, he didn't show it. Instead of backing away from Twitter, he turned his hobby of tweeting to his growing number of followers into a business investment. In January 2022, Elon started quietly buying up Twitter stock, amassing more and more until he'd acquired 5% of the shares, the threshold where he was technically required to notify the SEC of his stake. But Elon didn't file the paperwork. He kept his acquisition quiet until it was time to make his move. And that time was coming soon.
如果他真的担心这件事，那他并没有表现出来。相反，他并没有放弃使用推特的习惯，反而将他的推特粉丝们逐渐转化为商业投资。2022年1月，埃隆开始悄悄地购买Twitter的股票，不断地增持，直到他拥有了5%的股份，这是他在技术上必须通知SEC的阈值。但埃隆并没有提交文件。他保持了他的收购行动的秘密，直到是时候采取行动为止。而这个时机即将到来。
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我们得到了Hello Fresh的支持。当春天的阳光招唤你的时候，不要点外卖。相反，点Hello Fresh，不用担心厨艺不好。Hello Fresh的配方经过全面验证，预先分配，只需要几个简单的步骤就能轻松准备，我喜欢他们非常注重质量。他们的时令食材在成熟期采摘，并在不到七天的时间内从农场到达你的家中，所以你知道它们是新鲜的。我们试用了一个专为一个四口之家量身定制的Hello Fresh计划。我们都参与了其中，给我们带来了一些意外的亲子时光，但不久我们就坐在餐桌前，出乎我的意料，我的青少年们竟然喜欢上了这种真正有营养的餐点，而不是那些平常的外卖食品。更令人惊讶的是，我的女儿问我们什么时候能收到下一个Hello Fresh的交付，而不是特定的菜品。这就是她喜欢这种多样性和风味的程度，你知道我们其他人也会这么说。你试过了吗？你一定要去HelloFresh.com / the bird-sixteen，确保使用代码the bird-sixteen获取16顿免费的餐。再说一遍，那就是HelloFresh.com / the bird-one-six。确保使用代码the bird-one-six获取16顿免费的餐。HelloFresh，美国第一餐饮套餐。
In March of 2022, Elon Musk got a series of texts from his ex-wife, Talula Riley.
2022年3月，埃隆·马斯克从前妻塔拉·莱利收到了一系列短信。这些短信的内容是什么？是问题，谈论，爆炸新闻还是喜讯？我们不得而知。
Can you buy Twitter and then delete it please?
America is going insane.
你能买下 Twitter 然后把它删除吗？美国正走向疯狂。
—————————————————————————————————————
简洁易懂的中文翻译：
你能不能买下 Twitter 然后把它删了啊？现在的美国实在是太疯狂了。
Talula is a bea-less actress who has had roles in HBO's Westworld and in various made-for-TV movies.
She and Elon had met in 2008 at a bar in London and married in divorce twice, most recently in 2016.
But they still stayed in touch.
That day in March, Talula was particularly outraged by one of Twitter's content moderation decisions.
塔鲁拉是一位在HBO的《西部世界》和各种电视电影中担任角色的演员，但她并没有美貌。她和埃隆在2008年在伦敦的一家酒吧相遇，并在两次离婚中结婚，最近一次是在2016年。但是他们仍然保持联系。那个三月的那一天，塔鲁拉因Twitter的一项内容审查决定而特别愤怒。
Rachel Levine, the first ever trans woman to be named Assistant Health Secretary of the United States, had been named by USA Today as one of their women of the year.
In response, the conservative website, the Babylon Bee, had named Levine their Man of the Year. Twitter suspended the Bee's account, saying the tweet violated its policies on hate speech.
Talula rage texted Elon.
The Babylon Bee's suspension is crazy. It was a fucking joke.
Why is everyone become so puritanical?
A couple of minutes later, she texted another ID to Musk.
Or can you buy it and make it radically free speech?
Musk replied a few minutes later.
Maybe buy it and change it to properly support free speech.
美国史上第一位变性女性助卫生部长蕾切尔·莱文被美国今日报评选为年度女性之一。保守网站“巴比伦蜜蜂”将其评选为年度男性。推特停止了蜜蜂的账户，称其推文违反了其反对仇恨言论的政策。塔露拉愤怒地给埃隆发了短信。蜜蜂网站的暂停太疯狂了，那不过是一个玩笑。为什么每个人都变得如此纯洁主义？几分钟后，她又给马斯克发了另一个ID的短信。或者你能买下它，让它变成完全保护自由言论的网站吗？马斯克几分钟后回答。或许可以购买并改变其支持自由言论的立场。
Elon hadn't gone public about how much Twitter stocky owned, and he didn't want to yet.
The next day, he tweeted a poll to his followers.
Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?
He quickly followed it up with more context.
The consequences of this poll will be important.
Please vote carefully.
More than two million Twitter accounts voted in the poll.
The result?
And overwhelming?
No.
They did not believe the Twitter rigorously followed the principle of free speech.
埃隆还没有公开他拥有多少推特股票，他暂时不想这么做。第二天，他在推特上发布了一项投票，向他的追随者询问言论自由对于一个正常的民主国家是至关重要的，您是否认为Twitter严格遵守这一原则？他随即发布了更多的相关信息。这项投票的后果将是非常重要的，请谨慎投票。在这个投票中，超过两百万Twitter账户进行了投票。结果呢？是压倒性的吗？不。他们不相信Twitter严格遵守言论自由这一原则。
For the next few days, Elon shared his poll results and a series of tweets critical of the platform.
Given the Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.
What should be done?
Is a new platform needed?
And giving serious thought to this?
在接下来的几天里，埃隆分享了他的调查结果并发布了一系列批评该平台的推文。
考虑到 Twitter 是实际上的公共广场，不遵循言论自由原则会严重破坏民主。
该怎样处理呢？是否需要一个新的平台？并且要认真思考这个问题？
Soon after, Elon's phone buzzed.
Was a text from someone unexpected.
Following the thousands of private text messages that later became part of lawsuits surrounding Elon's purchase of Twitter, was this exchange between its founder and its would-be owner?
Yes, a new platform is needed.
It can't be a company.
This is why I left.
不久后，埃隆的手机响了。一条意外的短信。在众多关于埃隆购买Twitter的诉讼中成为证据的数千条私人短信之后，是这位创始人和潜在所有者之间的一次交流吗？是的，我们需要一个新的平台。它不能是一家公司。这就是我离开的原因。
It was Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.
Elon asked Jack what this platform should look like.
Jack had plenty of thoughts.
A new version of Twitter should have no investors dictating policy.
No advertisers controlling content.
A pure flow of free speech around the globe.
He made another surprising admission.
One that the public had no idea about.
I tried my hardest to get you on our board and the board said no.
That's about the time I decided to leave, as hard as it was for me.
I think the main reason is the board is just super-risk averse and saw you as adding more risk, which I thought was completely stupid and backwards.
But I only had one vote and 3% of the company.
We can discuss more.
这是Twitter联合创始人和前CEO杰克·多西。伊隆问杰克这个平台应该是什么样子的。杰克有很多想法。新版本的Twitter不应该有投资者来决定政策，也不应该由广告商来控制内容，应该是一个自由言论的流动在全球范围内的平台。他做出了另一个令人惊讶的承认。这是公众所不知道的。我尽力让你加入我们的董事会，但董事会说不。那时我决定离开了，尽管对我来说非常困难。我认为主要原因是董事会过于风险回避，并认为你会增加更多的风险，我认为这是完全愚蠢和落后的想法。但我只有一个投票权和3%的股份。我们可以讨论更多。
The time had come for Elon to show his cards.
He revealed the size of his ownership stake to Twitter's board, 5% of Twitter stock.
And he presented them with 3 choices.
He could buy the company.
He could start a rival platform.
Or they could give him a seat on the board.
时机已经到来，埃隆需要展示他的底牌。他向Twitter董事会透露了他所拥有的股权大小，即Twitter股票的5%。然后他向他们提出了3个选择：他可以收购该公司，他可以启动一个竞争平台，或者他们可以给他一个董事会席位。
It was that choice that led Twitter's board chair, Brett Taylor and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to meet with Elon at that strange Airbnb near the San Jose airport in late March 2022. The board had decided it was best to pursue the path of least resistance. Instead of antagonizing Elon, now apparently a sizable shareholder in their company, they'd offer him a seat on the board. And Elon accepted.
这个选择导致了推特的董事长布雷特·泰勒和推特CEO帕拉格·阿格拉沃于2022年3月晚间与伊隆在圣何塞机场附近的一处奇怪的Airbnb会面。董事会已经决定选取最少的阻力路径。他们不想惹恼伊隆，而他是公司的重要股东，因此要将他提供一个董事会席位。而伊隆接受了这个提议。
Later that night, Elon texted Brett and Parag. Great dinner. He added a smiley face at the end. But Elon wasn't content with simply getting a board seat. He had not stopped buying up more and more Twitter stock.
当晚，伊隆发短信给布雷特和帕拉格说：“晚餐很棒。”最后还加了一个笑脸。但伊隆对仅仅拥有一把董事会席位并不满足。他一直在不断地买入更多的Twitter股票。
The day after the meeting with Brett and Parag, he surpassed 9% of the shares, which made him officially the company's largest shareholder. Four days after his meeting with Brett and Parag, and more than a week after he should have filed SEC paperwork, Elon finally made his ownership of Twitter stock. New this morning, Elon Musk is taking a 9.2% stake in Twitter. The Tesla CEO bought more than 73.5 million shares according to a regulatory filing.
在与Brett和Parag会面的第二天，他超过了9%的股份，正式成为公司最大的股东。在与Brett和Parag会面四天后，并且超过了应该提交SEC文件的一周时间之后，Elon最终确认了他对Twitter股票的拥有。今天早上，Elon Musk将持有Twitter的股份增加至9.2%。据监管文件显示，特斯拉CEO购买了超过7350万股。
Right away, Elon's phone blew up. Venture Capitalist Joe Lanzdale was optimistic. Excited to see the stake in Twitter. Awesome. Hope you're able to influence it. I bet you the board doesn't even get a full reporting of the censorship decisions and little cabals going on there, but they should. The lefties on the board likely want plausible deniability.
马上，埃隆的手机就响了起来。风险投资家乔·兰赛德尔很乐观，很激动地看到了在 Twitter 的股份。太棒了！希望你能够对它施加影响。我敢打赌董事会甚至没有详细报告审查决策和内部组织，但他们应该要知道。董事会上的左派可能希望有个合理的否认。
Podcaster Joe Rogan also texted his excitement. Are you going to liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob? Even Elon's doctor had something to say. Time for a Latter-day Gutenberg to bring back free speech and buy Twitter. But there were plenty of people who were less thrilled, and some of them used Twitter as the forum to vent.
波德卡斯特乔·罗根（Joe Rogan）也通过短信表达了他的兴奋。你要从审查愉快的暴徒手中解放Twitter吗？甚至埃隆的医生也有话要说。现在是时候有一个后期古腾堡把言论自由带回来，并购买 Twitter了。但也有许多人并不是那么高兴，其中一些人在Twitter上发泄情绪。
Our U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Rice tweeted, So let me get this straight. Elon Musk made $156 million by violating securities law, and he was rewarded with a seat on Twitter's board. And this quote from Stephen Colbert went viral. Elon Musk asked in a poll if we wanted an edit button on Twitter. I'd rather you cancel the accounts of all the Nazis, but an edit button would be nice.
我们美国劳工部长罗伯特·莱斯在推特上发了一条推文，大意是这样的：让我来理理思路。埃隆·马斯克违反证券法赚取了1.56亿美元，结果被允许加入推特董事会。而这条话引用自史蒂芬·科尔伯特的言论，在社交网站上迅速走红。马斯克发起一个投票，询问是否需要在推特上加入编辑按钮。我更希望你撤销所有纳粹账号，但加入一个编辑按钮也不错。
Inside Twitter, the top brass simply weren't talking. Twitter's thousands of employees were to each other. Jim Redmond recalls that opinions on Musk were divided. There were people who were a little confused by it like why is Elon taking interest in Twitter like this. We know he was a pretty heavy user, he still is, but we weren't quite sure why he was going to take an ownership interest in it.
Twitter公司的高层领导们沉默不语。Twitter公司的成千上万名员工之间则进行着讨论。吉姆·雷德蒙德回忆说，人们对马斯克的看法是分歧的。有些人有点困惑，不太明白为什么埃隆对Twitter感兴趣。我们知道他是一个很积极的用户，至今仍然如此，但我们不太确定他为什么要投资它。
Things were moving fast. At 5.30 in the morning, Pacific time, Rog posted two tweets announcing the news. I'm excited to share that we're appointing Elon Musk to our board. Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our board.
事情发展得很快。早上5:30太平洋时间，罗格（Rog）发了两条推特宣布消息。我很兴奋地宣布我们任命埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）加入我们的董事会。通过最近几周与埃隆的交谈，我们明确意识到他将为我们的董事会带来巨大的价值。
He's both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service, which is exactly what we need on Twitter and in the boardroom to make us stronger in the long term. Welcome Elon.
他既是服务的热情支持者，也是激烈的批评家，这正是我们在 Twitter 和董事会中所需要的，可以使我们在长期中更加强大。欢迎 Elon 的加入。
Elon spent the days between the announcement and his start date getting up to speed, and he texted extensively with Parag. I have a ton of ideas, but let me know if I'm pushing too hard. I just want Twitter to be maximum amazing. For his part, Parag seemed to warm to Elon's unabashed enthusiasm.
埃隆在公布开始日期和实际上任之间的日子里，努力了解情况，并与帕拉格频繁交谈。我有很多想法，但如果我太着急了，请告诉我。我只是希望Twitter能够更加惊人。就他自己而言，帕拉格似乎对埃隆毫不掩饰的热情感到欢迎。
I want to hear all of your ideas, and I'll tell you which ones I'll make progress on versus not and why. It seemed like that was all the encouragement Elon needed. It would be great to unwind permanent bands, except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence.
我想听听你们所有的想法，我会告诉你们哪些我会进展，哪些我不会，并告诉你为什么。似乎这正是埃隆所需要的鼓励。如果可以取消永久封禁，除了垃圾账户和明确主张暴力的账户，那会很好。
I would like to understand the technical details of the Twitter code base. This will help me calibrate the dumbness of my suggestions. I used to be CTO and have been in our code base a long time, so I can answer many of your questions. I wrote heavy duty software for 20 years. I interface way better with engineers who are able to do hardcore programming than with program manager MBA types. Frankly, I hate doing management stuff. I kind of don't think anyone should be the boss of anyone, but I love helping solve technical design problems.
我想了解Twitter代码库的技术细节。这将有助于我校准我的建议的可行性。我曾经是CTO，长时间使用我们的代码库，因此我能回答你们许多问题。我已经写了20年的重型软件。我与能够进行核心编程的工程师交流更好，而不是与项目经理MBA类型的人交流。坦白地说，我讨厌做管理工作。我不太认为任何人都应该是其他人的老板，但我喜欢帮助解决技术设计问题。
In our next convo, treat me like an engineer instead of CEO, and let's see where we get to. You got it. Maybe the two men could bond over the cold minutia of coding and bring order to the chaos of Twitter's C-suite. They made arrangements to talk on the phone the next day. Things seemed to be going well. But on April 9th, the day he was set to join the board, Elon did something to ice this budding relationship.
在我们下一次交谈中，把我当作一名工程师而不是CEO，让我们看看我们能走多远。明白了。也许这两个人可以通过冷静地讨论编码来加强联系，为Twitter的高管层带来秩序。他们安排了在第二天通电话。事情似乎进展顺利。但是在4月9日，他准备加入董事会的那天，埃隆做了一些事情，冰冻了这种初步的关系。
He posted a list of the 10 accounts with the most followers on Twitter and observed that many of those accounts barely tweeted anymore. He cited examples, Taylor Swift hadn't tweeted in three months, Justin Bieber had only tweeted once in 2022. And he asked a simple, but brutal question. Is Twitter dying? Maraud quickly texted him, his tone less friendly. You are free to tweet is Twitter dying or anything else about Twitter, but it's my responsibility to tell you it's not helping me make Twitter better in the current context.
他发布了一个推特账户关注量前10名的列表，并指出这些账户中许多人几乎不再发布推文了。他举了泰勒·斯威夫特已经三个月没有推特，贾斯汀·比伯在2022年只推特了一次等例子。然后他提出一个简单但残酷的问题：推特是否正在死亡？马尔德迅速给他发了一条文本信息，语气不再友好。你随便发推文，说推特是否正在死亡或者任何有关推特的话题都行，但我负责告诉你，在目前情况下，这对我让推特变得更好并没有帮助。
Elon didn't appreciate the reprimand. He snapped back. What did you get done this week? He didn't wait for an answer. 30 seconds later, he sent another text with a declaration. I'm not joining the board. This is a waste of time. 15 seconds after that, he declared war. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.
埃隆没有欣赏责备。他回了一句。你本周完成了什么？他没有等待答案。30秒后，他发送了另一条声明的短信。我不加入董事会。这是浪费时间。在此之后的15秒内，他宣布开战。我们将提出收购Twitter的报价。
简单明了地表达：埃隆受不了责备，并反击了。他问了一下别人这周做了什么，但没有等待他们回答就发了两条短信，一条宣布自己不会加入董事会，另一条则是宣布将提出收购Twitter的报价，意味着他们之间将开战。
Coming up on this season of flipping the bird. Musk offered about $43 billion to buy Twitter. You can't break off a deal via tweets. Musk is making a mockery out of that, sharing poop emojis and dismissing the real effort to take it seriously. He's like, to do the thing and then everyone's like, we got to work on that now because he tweeted it. It seems the markets are still looking for the bottom. It just felt like everything was kind of descending into chaos.
《翻转鸟》这个节目即将播出新一季。马斯克提出约430亿美元收购推特。不能用推文结束交易。马斯克在这方面开玩笑，分享了屎便符号，否定了认真对待收购的努力。他似乎是在完成某个事情，然后每个人都会因为他的推特而认为必须得跟进。市场似乎仍然在寻找底部。感觉一切都在逐渐陷入混乱中。
Eventually auctioned off the contents of the market street San Francisco Twitter headquarters. Oh my God, maybe this won't work. Things are going to be okay. And it just like the next day, everything went to hell.
最终，旧金山Twitter总部的市场街内部物品被拍卖。天哪，也许这不会奏效。事情会好起来的。但就在第二天，一切变得一团糟。
意思：Twitter总部的市场街内部物品最终被拍卖，情况不妙，但人们仍希望一切会好起来。然而，很快一切走向了最糟的方向。
Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes of flipping the bird, Elon versus Twitter. Add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen, add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.
嗨，亚马逊会员们，你们可以在亚马逊音乐中免费收听《Flipping the Bird：埃隆对Twitter》的节目。今天就下载亚马逊音乐应用程序吧！或者你也可以在苹果播客中使用Wondery Plus收听，并享受无广告的收听体验。
Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com/survey.
在您离开之前，请在Wondery.com/survey上完成一份短调查，向我们介绍您自己。
From Wondery, this is episode one of six. Flipping the bird, Elon versus Twitter. I'm your host David Brown. Austin Racklis wrote this story. Our producers are Nika Singh and Dave Schilling. Julia Lowry Henderson and Karen Lowe are our senior producers. Reporting by Emily Corwin, production assistants by Emily Locke and Mariah Dennis. Fact checking by Noelle Anjani, voice acting by Michelle Philippi. Consultant is Kurt Wagner, Bloomberg journalist and author of an upcoming book about Twitter and Elon Musk. Sound designed by Kyle Randall. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Friesson Sink.
这是Wondery制作的6集之一的节目“翻鸟”，探讨了伊隆马斯克与推特之间的争执。我是主持人大卫·布朗，这个故事是由奥斯汀·拉克利斯编写的，制片人是尼卡·辛格和戴夫·希林，朱莉娅·洛瑞·亨德森和卡伦·洛是我们的高级制片人，艾米丽·科尔温采访报道，艾米丽·洛克和玛利亚·丹尼斯是我们的制作助理，诺艾尔·安贾尼进行事实核查，米歇尔·菲利普提供配音，顾问库尔特·瓦格纳是彭博新闻记者，即将出版一本关于推特和伊隆马斯克的书，音效设计是凯尔·兰德尔，音乐监督是斯科特·维拉斯奎兹，来自Friesson Sink。
When your managing producer is Latha Pontja, managing producer is Olivia Weber, coordinating producer is Heather Beloga. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, George Lavender, Marshall Louis and Jen Sargent. We're Wondery.
我们是Wondery，我们的管理制片人是Latha Pontja和Olivia Weber，协调制片人是Heather Beloga。执行制片人包括Jenny Lauer Beckman、George Lavender、Marshall Louis和Jen Sargent。