Also when scaling tech/platforms this is a big factor in how many people can actually pay.
Every scaled up platforms then gets trapped into collecting/selling personal data and flooding the field with Ads (and obviously in these ad auctions the 10% can outbid the majority so Ad prices keep rising).
"They bring in a rookie, throw money at him, buy the car, the house, after a couple of years, and your kids are in private schools, you're used to the good life, they tell you the truth"
Big salaries thrown at young people are bait. They don't need wild animals, but circus animals that are obedient, dependent and consistently perform tricks without too much thinking about why. Over time this involves such animals to loose all sense of self. Naturally this won't work on everyone and causes all kinds issues for both sides.
I actually wasn't that young, I was 27 when I started and I was already "senior level" before I worked there.
Also, the salary was good but not as amazing as people to think. When I started there in 2018, I was making $165k/year; certainly not "bad" but not spectacular.
The stock grants were huge though. If I were still there I'd be worth more than a million now, I think.
Actually its more a question of what others can learn from them, than the other way around because of these constraints.
The first time I was shown a case study of Amul (cooperative model of food production), it was a really eye opening moment, cause they had reached massive scale, profitable, invested in quality/innovation, really super creative (on the marketing side without any great budget) and most importantly Sustainable.
Like me if you have studied Dominoes, KFC and McDonalds this is not supposed to be possible. It shows how constraints in the local environment lead to innovation and totally different models that work.
Anyone getting thrown into the deep end of the Indian market, equipped with Western models are quickly confronted by assumptions that don't hold, and then they come up with stuff we don't see in the west.
Just look at their Dabbawalas (decentralized supply-chains/logistics), UPI (disintermediating Mastercard and Visa), IPL (no one thought cricket could compete when literally less than 10 countries playing the sport) etc
Western companies built their scalable models by optimizing for capital-heavy, consumption-driven economiess, but that doesn’t mean those models are the only viable ones. India (and other low-consumption economies) often find more sustainable ways to solve the same problems because there’s no safety net of endless VC funding, mass credit, or impulse spending to prop things up. Most Western companies operate in winner-takes-all mode (Amazon crushes small retailers, Uber kills taxis). But Indian models like UPI, Amul, Kirana networks show models of growth in a more cooperative manner.
In the Attention Economy, that social media platforms create, he knows how to capture Attention. The question is not Elon but about why we tolerate these platforms that prop up people like Elon or what the alternatives are.
Michael Goldharber pointed out at the dawn of the Internet => info explodes but Attention does not + ppl have a limited capacity to pay attention but unlimited capacity to receive attention.
The truth is Everyone needs a bit of Attention (it is a source of self esteem), that's why sites like HN work because people feel they are seen or heard even if its one upvote.
But then there are Elon and Trump types who are born with a need to be loved and respected by everyone. Plant them in the social media environment, where attention capture is rewarded, and is the main source of profit for the platforms, and we get the abnormal fruits we sow.
Every scaled up platforms then gets trapped into collecting/selling personal data and flooding the field with Ads (and obviously in these ad auctions the 10% can outbid the majority so Ad prices keep rising).