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What evidence can you provide that Elon is highly intelligent and skilled? Really appears to have quite mediocre ability to me. Has focused on some quite inter

by xevb3k 8y ago

What evidence can you provide that Elon is highly intelligent and skilled? Really appears to have quite mediocre ability to me. Has focused on some quite interesting problems, but mostly his ability seems like PR/marketing.

coralreef 8y ago
Cofounded PayPal...started a reusable rocket company in SpaceX. Brought electric cars to the mainstream with Tesla...was in a PhD physics program at Stanford and dropped out. Like, those results don't qualify to you as someone who is intelligent and skilled?
- xevb3k 8y ago
  Not “most amazing human being to ever have lived” as the parent poster suggested, no. I guess this isn’t the place to suggest it, but really in success like PayPal there is a large element of luck at play. He maybe reasonably smart, but the way some people treat him like the most amazing person who has ever lived is ridiculous.
  - confiscate 8y ago
    sure "most amazing" is debatable but that's not what you said. You said he is mediocre. What made you say he is mediocre?
    - xevb3k 8y ago
      Hyperloop? I don’t see this (or any of his other ideas) as coming from someone with an abnormal level of intelligence. He may have the ability to hire people who can execute well on ideas (though I also think that Tesla’s achievement are over-hyped). He may have good business sense, and the ability to raise money. But I don’t see him as having an amazing intellect... so I’d be interested in evidence that shows that...
      - confiscate 8y ago
        Nice! So you look at Elon's entire history of ideas, and the one thing that caught your eye first was Hyperloop? Why did you name the Hyperloop? Is Elon working on a Hyperloop company? Those things you mentioned "hire people who execute well on ideas", "good business sense", "ability to raise money". Those are medicore skills? We don't know each other in person, but from online-chatting with you, you sound like you have good intelligence. Can you do any of those?
        xevb3k 8y ago
        Hyperloop is a mediocre (well, actually bad) idea. It indicates that Elon is not some genius level engineer. I think you underestimate the degree to which luck plays a role in the development of companies.
        confiscate 8y ago
        I think you underestimate the degree to which skills and intelligence plays in building a company that goes to space.
        Retric 8y ago
        Hyperloop as presented is a good idea, but perhaps not great idea. High vacuums are expencive to maintain and take longer to achieve after a leak, but would allow for faster speeds. They also force maglev or something like it to achieve those speeds which is expensive. It also forces you to carry an indecent air supply, and cooling becomes a significant issue. At STP you just have a normal train which is limited to a few hundred miles an hour. Between those extremes you need to deal with some air but you can compress it for passengers. Further, you can quickly pump down the air pressure using fewer pumps. You can fly / use ground effect avoiding the mag lev issues. Heat is really the largest issue, compressing air heats it as does friction, and your passengers / equipment also generate heat. So, you would want the air kept at very low temperates. Why not just use nag lev? You get faster speeds and as strange as it sounds lower cost per mile of track. TLDR; Lots of useful trade offs.
confiscate 8y ago
what made you decide Elon has medicore ability? Because I am curious how one would arrive at that conclusion.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  I don't know if he's super smart of mediocre and I think it's hard to judge from afar. But he does seem to make some bad decisions, like: - The Boring Company - betting on self-driving tech - getting kicked out of Paypal - sleeping on his factory floor - trying to run 3-4 companies at once - SolarCity - claiming he wants to overengineer the tolerances on his cars - an iPad instead of a dashboard Basically, I just see a lot of his decisions are not well thought out. His main skill seems to be getting people to give him money.
confiscate 8y ago
You said "What evidence can you provide that Elon is highly intelligent and skilled?" You sound like a 100% rational person who looks at only hard evidence, instead of making rash assumptions based on emotions. What evidence can you provide that Elon is mediocre?
- xevb3k 8y ago
  You’ve posted this same question/comment, 3 times in this thread (and I’ve answered it below). You seem to be taking this somewhat personally. I find it worrying that “Elon is a hyper-intelligent Superman” seems so closely tied up with individual identity in some cases... I guess creating hero’s sometimes makes the universe easier to deal with. But it has an overall negative effect on SV culture.
  - confiscate 8y ago
    No you seem to be the one taking this personally. The topics you mentioned "superman" "alien" "individual identity" "hero" "universe"... seems like you are off on a tangent? I have no idea what you are talking about. Even if you ignore all his other achievements, the man sent his car to Mars. And people are still sitting there going "meh, not impressed. Hyperloop. Average intelligence. Medicore". THAT attitude has an overall negative effect on SV culture.
    - xevb3k 8y ago
      Large teams of people did those things not a single individual.
      - late2part 8y ago
        “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that“ - B. Obama
        xevb3k 8y ago
        It was unfortunately phrased (allowing opposing parties to misrepresent the statement). But I think it’s a reasonably accurate statement. Companies, and other forms of progress, don’t come from individual effort alone. This is particularly true of science based startups, and the way modern companies are formed and developed (which relies on lots or hiring, lots of external funding, not profit driven).

by xevb3k 8y ago

coralreef 8y ago

Cofounded PayPal...started a reusable rocket company in SpaceX. Brought electric cars to the mainstream with Tesla...was in a PhD physics program at Stanford and dropped out. Like, those results don't qualify to you as someone who is intelligent and skilled?

xevb3k 8y ago
Not “most amazing human being to ever have lived” as the parent poster suggested, no. I guess this isn’t the place to suggest it, but really in success like PayPal there is a large element of luck at play. He maybe reasonably smart, but the way some people treat him like the most amazing person who has ever lived is ridiculous.
- confiscate 8y ago
  sure "most amazing" is debatable but that's not what you said. You said he is mediocre. What made you say he is mediocre?
  - xevb3k 8y ago
    Hyperloop? I don’t see this (or any of his other ideas) as coming from someone with an abnormal level of intelligence. He may have the ability to hire people who can execute well on ideas (though I also think that Tesla’s achievement are over-hyped). He may have good business sense, and the ability to raise money. But I don’t see him as having an amazing intellect... so I’d be interested in evidence that shows that...
    - confiscate 8y ago
      Nice! So you look at Elon's entire history of ideas, and the one thing that caught your eye first was Hyperloop? Why did you name the Hyperloop? Is Elon working on a Hyperloop company? Those things you mentioned "hire people who execute well on ideas", "good business sense", "ability to raise money". Those are medicore skills? We don't know each other in person, but from online-chatting with you, you sound like you have good intelligence. Can you do any of those?
      - xevb3k 8y ago
        Hyperloop is a mediocre (well, actually bad) idea. It indicates that Elon is not some genius level engineer. I think you underestimate the degree to which luck plays a role in the development of companies.
        confiscate 8y ago
        I think you underestimate the degree to which skills and intelligence plays in building a company that goes to space.
        Retric 8y ago
        Hyperloop as presented is a good idea, but perhaps not great idea. High vacuums are expencive to maintain and take longer to achieve after a leak, but would allow for faster speeds. They also force maglev or something like it to achieve those speeds which is expensive. It also forces you to carry an indecent air supply, and cooling becomes a significant issue. At STP you just have a normal train which is limited to a few hundred miles an hour. Between those extremes you need to deal with some air but you can compress it for passengers. Further, you can quickly pump down the air pressure using fewer pumps. You can fly / use ground effect avoiding the mag lev issues. Heat is really the largest issue, compressing air heats it as does friction, and your passengers / equipment also generate heat. So, you would want the air kept at very low temperates. Why not just use nag lev? You get faster speeds and as strange as it sounds lower cost per mile of track. TLDR; Lots of useful trade offs.

confiscate 8y ago

what made you decide Elon has medicore ability? Because I am curious how one would arrive at that conclusion.

akvadrako 8y ago
I don't know if he's super smart of mediocre and I think it's hard to judge from afar. But he does seem to make some bad decisions, like: - The Boring Company - betting on self-driving tech - getting kicked out of Paypal - sleeping on his factory floor - trying to run 3-4 companies at once - SolarCity - claiming he wants to overengineer the tolerances on his cars - an iPad instead of a dashboard Basically, I just see a lot of his decisions are not well thought out. His main skill seems to be getting people to give him money.

confiscate 8y ago

You said "What evidence can you provide that Elon is highly intelligent and skilled?" You sound like a 100% rational person who looks at only hard evidence, instead of making rash assumptions based on emotions. What evidence can you provide that Elon is mediocre?

xevb3k 8y ago
You’ve posted this same question/comment, 3 times in this thread (and I’ve answered it below). You seem to be taking this somewhat personally. I find it worrying that “Elon is a hyper-intelligent Superman” seems so closely tied up with individual identity in some cases... I guess creating hero’s sometimes makes the universe easier to deal with. But it has an overall negative effect on SV culture.
- confiscate 8y ago
  No you seem to be the one taking this personally. The topics you mentioned "superman" "alien" "individual identity" "hero" "universe"... seems like you are off on a tangent? I have no idea what you are talking about. Even if you ignore all his other achievements, the man sent his car to Mars. And people are still sitting there going "meh, not impressed. Hyperloop. Average intelligence. Medicore". THAT attitude has an overall negative effect on SV culture.
  - xevb3k 8y ago
    Large teams of people did those things not a single individual.
    - late2part 8y ago
      “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that“ - B. Obama
      - xevb3k 8y ago
        It was unfortunately phrased (allowing opposing parties to misrepresent the statement). But I think it’s a reasonably accurate statement. Companies, and other forms of progress, don’t come from individual effort alone. This is particularly true of science based startups, and the way modern companies are formed and developed (which relies on lots or hiring, lots of external funding, not profit driven).