CNBC by Walter Isaacson 9/11/2023
Elon Musk moving servers himself shows his ‘maniacal sense of urgency’ at X, formerly Twitter*This is adapted from Walter Isaacson’s biography, “Elon Musk,” published this month.
“Does this timeframe seem like something that I would find remotely acceptable?” Musk asked. “Obviously not. If a timeline is long, it’s wrong.”
It was late at night on December 22, and the meeting in Musk’s 10th floor conference room at X, formerly Twitter, had become tense. He was talking to two X infrastructure managers who had not dealt with him much before, and certainly not when he was in a foul mood.
One of them tried to explain the problem. The data-services company that housed one of X’s server farms, located in Sacramento, had agreed to allow them some short-term extensions on their lease so they could begin to move out during 2023 in an orderly fashion. “But this morning,” the nervous manager told Musk, “they came back to us and said that plan was no longer on the table because, and these are their words, they don’t think that we will be financially viable.”
The facility was costing X more than $100 million a year. Musk wanted to save that money by moving the servers to one of X’s other facilities, in Portland, Oregon. Another manager at the meeting said that couldn’t be done right away. “We can’t get out safely before six to nine months,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Sacramento still needs to be around to serve traffic.”
Over the years, Musk had been faced many times with a choice between what he thought was necessary and what others told him was possible. The result was almost always the same. He paused in silence for a few moments, then announced, “You have 90 days to do it. If you can’t make that work, your resignation is accepted.”
The manager began to explain in detail some of the obstacles to relocating the servers to Portland. “It has different rack densities, different power densities,” she said. “So the rooms need to be upgraded.” She started to give a lot more details, but after a minute, Musk interrupted.
“This is making my brain hurt,” he said.
“I’m sorry, that was not my intention,” she replied in a measured monotone.
“Do you know the head-explosion emoji?” he asked her. “That’s what my head feels like right now. What a pile of f---ing bulls---. Jesus H f---ing Christ. Portland obviously has tons of room. It’s trivial to move servers one place to another.”
The X managers again tried to explain the constraints. Musk interrupted. “Can you have someone go to our server centers and send me videos of the insides?” he asked.
It was three days before Christmas, and the manager promised the video in a week. “No, tomorrow,” Musk ordered. “I’ve built server centers myself, and I can tell if you could put more servers there or not. That’s why I asked if you had actually visited these facilities. If you’ve not been there, you’re just talking bulls---.”
More:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/elon-musk-moved-twitter-servers-himself-in-the-night-new-biography-details-his-maniacal-sense-of-urgency.html
