4 ms·

> Musk is making a contribution to the world. The Wolf on Wall Street not so much. This is such a dumb, narrow-minded statement. Musk isn't some angel handing

> Musk is making a contribution to the world. The Wolf on Wall Street not so much. This is such a dumb, narrow-minded statement. Musk isn't some angel handing out miracles. He's a businessman, on a business-centric call, and was being rude to other businessmen who are essential to the success of anything he wants to do. This isn't The Wolf of Wall Street, this was Toni Sacconaghi, an extremely credentialed analyst, doing his job. And if you don't think that wall street analysts don't "make a contribution to the world", you need some perspective. Tesla as a company literally would not exist without the funding provided by companies like the ones Toni represents. If Musk wanted to have a TED talk about how cool the future is, then he should have scheduled that on his own time. This was not that. Posters on HN complain all the time about how they get pulled into meetings and then their time is wasted because their bosses only wanted to talk about irrelevant stuff. That's exactly what happened here, only Musk was the one wasting everyone else's time.

mmsimanga 8y ago
It's dumb if you willfully select to view the statement in isolation. Wall Street did not come about to make the world a better place but came about to make investors rich. It is this single-minded focus on wealth that I couldn't give a rats ass about. This focus of wealth from quarter to quarter is short-sighted and unrealistic in certain businesses.
- txcwpalpha 8y ago
  This is, yet, again, an ill-informed and extremely narrow-minded statement. Stock markets came about because they were a way for farmers to hedge their bets against poor crop yields and allowed them, as well as the civilizations that depended on them, to survive winters without starving. Stock markets are responsible for the growth of major trade routes that did things like spread agricultural innovation, knowledge, and culture throughout the ancient world. It was not "to make investors rich". Today, the stock market still serves as a way to spread innovation. Elon Musk would not have been able to build Tesla, nor SpaceX, nor Solarcity without the help that Wall Street has provided. You are incorrect in assuming that this is about a "single-minded focus on wealth". They are asking questions about capital because these are the things that will determine whether or not Tesla will fail at "making the world a better place", and those are important things to know, just like it was important to know if all of your farmers are going to go out of business and cause a famine.
  - mmsimanga 8y ago
    This story was about how Musk replied to some investor questions. He said to them you need to be accept volatility. I support this view. I suggest you keep this context in mind when reading the comments instead of reading this as a thesis on the pros and cons of stock exchanges. Do you think everything about stock exchanges is good? Everything has pros and cons. From MySQL to PHP to Java. We all draw different conclusions based on our experiences, preferences and character. I have reported to too many accountants to actually give a rats ass about their so called "tough" questions.

mmsimanga 8y ago

It's dumb if you willfully select to view the statement in isolation. Wall Street did not come about to make the world a better place but came about to make investors rich. It is this single-minded focus on wealth that I couldn't give a rats ass about. This focus of wealth from quarter to quarter is short-sighted and unrealistic in certain businesses.

txcwpalpha 8y ago
This is, yet, again, an ill-informed and extremely narrow-minded statement. Stock markets came about because they were a way for farmers to hedge their bets against poor crop yields and allowed them, as well as the civilizations that depended on them, to survive winters without starving. Stock markets are responsible for the growth of major trade routes that did things like spread agricultural innovation, knowledge, and culture throughout the ancient world. It was not "to make investors rich". Today, the stock market still serves as a way to spread innovation. Elon Musk would not have been able to build Tesla, nor SpaceX, nor Solarcity without the help that Wall Street has provided. You are incorrect in assuming that this is about a "single-minded focus on wealth". They are asking questions about capital because these are the things that will determine whether or not Tesla will fail at "making the world a better place", and those are important things to know, just like it was important to know if all of your farmers are going to go out of business and cause a famine.
- mmsimanga 8y ago
  This story was about how Musk replied to some investor questions. He said to them you need to be accept volatility. I support this view. I suggest you keep this context in mind when reading the comments instead of reading this as a thesis on the pros and cons of stock exchanges. Do you think everything about stock exchanges is good? Everything has pros and cons. From MySQL to PHP to Java. We all draw different conclusions based on our experiences, preferences and character. I have reported to too many accountants to actually give a rats ass about their so called "tough" questions.