George Hotz: who is the coder Elon Musk has assigned to improve Twitter?

So much of the news surrounding Twitter since it was acquired by Elon Musk for $44 billion at the end of last month has centred on the mass job cuts.

But while thousands of staff headed for the exit door, there has been a standout tale of someone heading into the building.

George Hotz has been in the public eye before, having become the first person to jailbreak an Apple iPhone in 2007.

And now the tech world is taking notice of him again as he attempts to make Twitter a better functioning application under the watch of the world's richest person.

How did he come to be at Twitter?

It started on November 16 when Mr Musk's email to Twitter staff telling them he only wanted those prepared to work "hardcore" to remain entered the public domain.

Mr Hotz, 33, responded to a tweet containing a copy of Mr Musk's email by saying "this is the attitude that builds incredible things. Let all the people who don’t desire greatness leave".

He followed it with another tweet saying: "I’ll put my money where my mouth is. I’m down for a 12-week internship at Twitter for cost of living in SF. It’s not about accumulating capital in a dead world, it’s about making the world alive."

Mr Musk was paying attention and responded, "Sure, let's talk".

Mr Hotz clarified that he was good at optimisation and quickly understanding large code bases and was willing to start on Monday in office. Twitter staff had been ordered by Mr Musk to return to the office only days earlier.

What exactly is he doing at Twitter?

He started by live streaming a video explaining how Twitter works, which involved a lot of technical talk and on-screen code. The video has been watched almost 550,000 times on Twitter.

He's been tasked with improving Twitter's search function and said he would "try my hardest to do it".

"Also trying to get rid of that nondismissable login pop up after you scroll a little bit ugh these things ruin the Internet," he tweeted, adding: "If I just get rid of the pop up, I still consider my internship a win."

He said the second task on his list was to let users search their likes on the platform. "If both those can get done in the first two weeks, I think we are on track for great things," he tweeted.

Mr Hotz invited Twitter users to help him with his work and discussed the technicalities of what he was trying to do.

He did, however, receive some negative feedback and responded that he's "here to learn things". Mr Musk chimed in with "Welcome to Twitter".

What was Mr Hotz doing before his Twitter internship?

He was president of automated driving technology company comma.ai and also the founder of neural network company the tiny corp.

His LinkedIn page shows that he was an intern on three occasions at Google, at Mr Musk's SpaceX in 2013 and he spent eight months as a software engineer at Facebook in 2011.

He studied at Rochester Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University.

Have he and Mr Musk crossed paths before?

Yes, in 2015, he built a self-driving car in his own garage and took a Bloomberg reporter for a drive in it. "Don't touch any buttons or we'll die," he was quoted as saying.

Mr Hotz and Mr Musk reportedly met at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, and there was a proposal that if Mr Hotz could better the Mobileye technology Tesla was using, he would be given a big contract.

However, the talks broke down and Mr Musk told Mr Hotz he should "just work at Tesla". But Mr Hotz was "not looking for a job".

Tesla then issued a statement rebutting the content of the Bloomberg article.

"We think it is extremely unlikely that a single person or even a small company that lacks extensive engineering validation capability will be able to produce an autonomous driving system that can be deployed to production vehicles," it said.

"It may work as a limited demo on a known stretch of road — Tesla had such a system two years ago — but then requires enormous resources to debug over millions of miles of widely differing roads."

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The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

COMPANY%20PROFILE

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SPECS

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Series info

Test series schedule 1st Test, Abu Dhabi: Sri Lanka won by 21 runs; 2nd Test, Dubai: Play starts at 2pm, Friday-Tuesday

ODI series schedule 1st ODI, Dubai: October 13; 2nd ODI, Abu Dhabi: October 16; 3rd ODI, Abu Dhabi: October 18; 4th ODI, Sharjah: October 20; 5th ODI, Sharjah: October 23

T20 series schedule 1st T20, Abu Dhabi: October 26; 2nd T20, Abu Dhabi: October 27; 3rd T20, Lahore: October 29

Tickets Available at www.q-tickets.com

Stat Fourteen Fourteen of the past 15 Test matches in the UAE have been decided on the final day. Both of the previous two Tests at Dubai International Stadium have been settled in the last session. Pakistan won with less than an hour to go against West Indies last year. Against England in 2015, there were just three balls left.

Key battle - Azhar Ali v Rangana Herath Herath may not quite be as flash as Muttiah Muralitharan, his former spin-twin who ended his career by taking his 800th wicket with his final delivery in Tests. He still has a decent sense of an ending, though. He won the Abu Dhabi match for his side with 11 wickets, the last of which was his 400th in Tests. It was not the first time he has owned Pakistan, either. A quarter of all his Test victims have been Pakistani. If Pakistan are going to avoid a first ever series defeat in the UAE, Azhar, their senior batsman, needs to stand up and show the way to blunt Herath.

Switching%20sides

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If you go

The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct to Nairobi, with fares starting from Dh1,695. The resort can be reached from Nairobi via a 35-minute flight from Wilson Airport or Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, or by road, which takes at least three hours.

The rooms
Rooms at Fairmont Mount Kenya range from Dh1,870 per night for a deluxe room to Dh11,000 per night for the William Holden Cottage.

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The details

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Name: Yousef Al Bahar

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Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers

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Director: James Cameron

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Rating: 4.5/5

Indoor cricket in a nutshell

Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai

16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side

8 There are eight players per team

9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.

5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls

4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership

Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.

Zones

A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs

B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run

C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs

D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full

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Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong

Rating: 3/5

While you're here

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