3 ms·

I guess I’d consider myself a Musk fanboy, but I do think missing deadlines is a bad thing. Even if subconsciously, you’re eroding trust.

mirceal 8y ago
I would not consider myself a fanboy, but what is a deadline? The game being played here is: set super ambitious, unrealistic expectations to get people thinking/dreaming/talking about it. Eventually deliver on it. Again, normally the public/market would punish hard a company that does this. In Tesla’s case I belive the tolerance for delays is greater due to the perceived value of what they’re doing.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The game being played here is: set super ambitious, unrealistic expectations to get people thinking/dreaming/talking about it. Eventually deliver on it. For investors, overpromising for hype and underdelivering is a strategy which is likely to wear thin very fast. Especially on things like profitably and independence of new capital needs — production numbers themselves aren't independently inportant.
mikeash 8y ago
I don’t think there’s any trust left in Musk’s stated deadlines. “Elon time” is a meme and everybody now seems to know that any date he states is a “theoretically possible if everything goes perfectly on a frictionless plane” date, not when things will actually happen. The flip side is that he also has a good track record of delivering on outlandish promises, even if they’re late. When he says he’s going to build a rocket that makes the Saturn V look like a toy and use it to put humans on Mars by 2024, the specific year is not something to count on but the rest has a pretty good chance of happening. I think it would be better if he’d stop doing this, but I’d rather have wrong deadlines for amazing stuff that eventually happens than correct deadlines for mundane oversold crap as seems to be the standard procedure for so many.

mirceal 8y ago

I would not consider myself a fanboy, but what is a deadline? The game being played here is: set super ambitious, unrealistic expectations to get people thinking/dreaming/talking about it. Eventually deliver on it. Again, normally the public/market would punish hard a company that does this. In Tesla’s case I belive the tolerance for delays is greater due to the perceived value of what they’re doing.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> The game being played here is: set super ambitious, unrealistic expectations to get people thinking/dreaming/talking about it. Eventually deliver on it. For investors, overpromising for hype and underdelivering is a strategy which is likely to wear thin very fast. Especially on things like profitably and independence of new capital needs — production numbers themselves aren't independently inportant.

mikeash 8y ago

I don’t think there’s any trust left in Musk’s stated deadlines. “Elon time” is a meme and everybody now seems to know that any date he states is a “theoretically possible if everything goes perfectly on a frictionless plane” date, not when things will actually happen. The flip side is that he also has a good track record of delivering on outlandish promises, even if they’re late. When he says he’s going to build a rocket that makes the Saturn V look like a toy and use it to put humans on Mars by 2024, the specific year is not something to count on but the rest has a pretty good chance of happening. I think it would be better if he’d stop doing this, but I’d rather have wrong deadlines for amazing stuff that eventually happens than correct deadlines for mundane oversold crap as seems to be the standard procedure for so many.