Elon Musk’s Twitter deal has continued to make waves as the billionaire’s seemingly eccentric decisions confused admirers and critics alike. Now, the Twitter CEO has hired a high profile hacker to revamp Twitter 2.0 search function.
Musk’s pick is none other than George Hotz, who is well-known in the tech world for being the first person to hack an iPhone while still a teenager. In the past, Musk and Hotz have disagreed over self-driving car technologies.
Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0: Twitter Search Function
Musk had earlier admitted that he is overloaded with work after the acquisition of Twitter. It is no secret that Musk is on the lookout for a new CEO, but until everything falls into place, Musk will continue as the chief executive officer.
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” It looks like Musk did take a leaf out of Churchill’s book.
George Hotz, alias geohot, and Musk’s rivalry dates back to 2015 when they first argued over Tesla’s MobilEye technology. But the men seem to have put their differences aside to tackle one of the most interesting problems faced by the microblogging site.
On November 17, Hotz took to Twitter to announce that he wants to work at Twitter.
https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/status/1592955427179765760?s=20&t=5HrKVoBxj1otFr99MrB-7g
It did not take long for Musk to carry the conversation forward. Almost a week later, Hotz posted an update on what Musk wants him to do. The billionaire wants Hotz to fix the Twitter search function and remove the prompt that prevents users from browsing the service without logging in.
George Hotz at Twitter
On November 22, George Hotz posted, “Today, I’m a Tweep! The internet feels full of possibility again.” While Hotz is not very popular in the outside world, he is extremely well-known within the tech community.
In his mid-twenties, Hotz dabbled in artificial intelligence (AI) and founded car automation startup Comma.ai. He also explores a range of topics in his blog ranging from creation of wealth to breaking down terrorist manifestos.
In the three months he has at Twitter, Hotz will attempt to improve the Twitter search function on priority. He would then tackle the browsing features, so that people can look up what they want without typing in the exact text they want to find. Further, he is also crowdsourcing ideas for delivering more contextual autocomplete results when users type “from:” in the search box.
https://twitter.com/realGeorgeHotz/status/1595270867402956801?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1595270867402956801%7Ctwgr%5E43afd13ac2486126aa4840cf1add350e6c8cdb75%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.searchenginejournal.com%2Felon-musk-hires-prolific-hacker-george-hotz-to-fix-twitter-search%2F472151%2F
His ambitious plans include setting up a way for Twitter users to search within well-liked tweets, after removing the pop-up.
Hotz is clearly enjoying the challenge, and wrote that he would like to finish both the latter tasks within the first two weeks. The hacker also revealed that he has been bombarded with negative feedback, since he announced his Twitter internship.
Netizens are curious to see whether Hotz will live up to the hype he creates or quit before the job is done. We will have our answers in three months’ time, on the fate of the Twitter search function.
Over the years Hotz has explored the security networks of big tech like Facebook and Google, not counting the many startups he has worked for.
