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Could you talk more about what makes him an appealing "guy?" His use of twitter would be a flag for most boards, so trying to see if there is some sort of Britt

Could you talk more about what makes him an appealing "guy?" His use of twitter would be a flag for most boards, so trying to see if there is some sort of Brittney Spears allure.

3pt14159 8y ago
Because he thinks in first principles out loud and he has balls. The number of engineers that do the math on how something is possible but never do anything about it because they can't find the funding or risk their own is too damn high. Musk risks it all to achieve something great. I've my own reservations about him, but at the end of the day he's still trying to make a difference and he isn't letting stuffiness suck all the fun out of it. Look at everyone else that is rich. At best, they donate their money helping poor people around the world. At worst, they use their wealth to buy lobbyists and lawyers to minimize their taxes. Musk is doing something different. He's funding low-orbit satellites, rockets, electric cars, self-driving tech (and open sourcing the security side and patents to boot!), hyperloops, tunnels, solar panels, battery packs. I'm worried about some of it[1] but at least he's trying. It feels like everyone else in the world has this slow-moving kludge about them. [1] I think autonomous devices should be highly regulated due to the risks of mass weaponization via cyber attack, for example.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Musk has been risking other people's money for all of his endeavors...public investors for Tesla (and banks), and government money for SpaceX and SolarCity. Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it. And their are others that recognize that hyperloops are a solution in search of a problem, that the hard part of tunneling isn't the boring but the post-boring activities (i.e., tube construction), and that self-driving isn't something you can solve in 6 months.
  - nickik 8y ago
    > Musk has been risking other people's money for all of his endeavors...public investors for Tesla (and banks), and government money for SpaceX and SolarCity. Yes and all his companies are growing and have a good return on investment. The public loans have been payed back. There are so many companies who live of the government tit and rarely get called out because of it. > Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it. I agree that other people are doing good things also (the minority) but Elon is not really doing that. The reality is that society has aggrandized him. Every tweet of his causes a massive storm of tech blog entries, news articles, stock analysts and so on. Elon for the most part like to make stupid insider jokes do stuff without technology. Everything else seems to be a sort of secondary less interesting things.
    - nojvek 8y ago
      Elon delivers. That’s why people write things and there are fanatics. He did something almost impossible with SpaceX and Tesla. Boosters that go up and land back again? That’s nuts. Doing it at a peanut of existing cost. That’s takes some entrepreneurial and engineering skill. A high end pure electric car? That seems like a suicide business. It is however a very highly desirable car. It drives on highways by itself is just science fiction brought closer to reality. Sure the guy says a lot of crap, sometimes his timelines are way off, he could be a bit sexist too. The world probably puts him on a pedestal. You can’t however take away his accomplishments. He’s putting his money where his mouth is and trying to push the world towards sustainable energy/transport and first steps towards possibly another earth.
      - coatmatter 8y ago
        > He did something almost impossible with SpaceX and Tesla. Boosters that go up and land back again? That’s nuts. I'm trying to gauge whether "almost impossible" is literal or figurative here, given that (the) Eagle did the same sort of thing on the moon in 1969 without refurbishment between landing and take-off. Also, Blue Origin is relatively close in competition to Space X even though it might not seem like it to many. Almost impossible?
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  As someone much smarter than me said something similar to "great ideas are common, execution is everything". Musk executes on ideas. I think he gets too much credit for having all the ideas. Similar to Jobs in that sense.

Could you talk more about what makes him an appealing "guy?" His use of twitter would be a flag for most boards, so trying to see if there is some sort of Brittney Spears allure.

3pt14159 8y ago

Because he thinks in first principles out loud and he has balls. The number of engineers that do the math on how something is possible but never do anything about it because they can't find the funding or risk their own is too damn high. Musk risks it all to achieve something great. I've my own reservations about him, but at the end of the day he's still trying to make a difference and he isn't letting stuffiness suck all the fun out of it. Look at everyone else that is rich. At best, they donate their money helping poor people around the world. At worst, they use their wealth to buy lobbyists and lawyers to minimize their taxes. Musk is doing something different. He's funding low-orbit satellites, rockets, electric cars, self-driving tech (and open sourcing the security side and patents to boot!), hyperloops, tunnels, solar panels, battery packs. I'm worried about some of it[1] but at least he's trying. It feels like everyone else in the world has this slow-moving kludge about them. [1] I think autonomous devices should be highly regulated due to the risks of mass weaponization via cyber attack, for example.

gamblor956 8y ago
Musk has been risking other people's money for all of his endeavors...public investors for Tesla (and banks), and government money for SpaceX and SolarCity. Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it. And their are others that recognize that hyperloops are a solution in search of a problem, that the hard part of tunneling isn't the boring but the post-boring activities (i.e., tube construction), and that self-driving isn't something you can solve in 6 months.
- nickik 8y ago
  > Musk has been risking other people's money for all of his endeavors...public investors for Tesla (and banks), and government money for SpaceX and SolarCity. Yes and all his companies are growing and have a good return on investment. The public loans have been payed back. There are so many companies who live of the government tit and rarely get called out because of it. > Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it. I agree that other people are doing good things also (the minority) but Elon is not really doing that. The reality is that society has aggrandized him. Every tweet of his causes a massive storm of tech blog entries, news articles, stock analysts and so on. Elon for the most part like to make stupid insider jokes do stuff without technology. Everything else seems to be a sort of secondary less interesting things.
  - nojvek 8y ago
    Elon delivers. That’s why people write things and there are fanatics. He did something almost impossible with SpaceX and Tesla. Boosters that go up and land back again? That’s nuts. Doing it at a peanut of existing cost. That’s takes some entrepreneurial and engineering skill. A high end pure electric car? That seems like a suicide business. It is however a very highly desirable car. It drives on highways by itself is just science fiction brought closer to reality. Sure the guy says a lot of crap, sometimes his timelines are way off, he could be a bit sexist too. The world probably puts him on a pedestal. You can’t however take away his accomplishments. He’s putting his money where his mouth is and trying to push the world towards sustainable energy/transport and first steps towards possibly another earth.
    - coatmatter 8y ago
      > He did something almost impossible with SpaceX and Tesla. Boosters that go up and land back again? That’s nuts. I'm trying to gauge whether "almost impossible" is literal or figurative here, given that (the) Eagle did the same sort of thing on the moon in 1969 without refurbishment between landing and take-off. Also, Blue Origin is relatively close in competition to Space X even though it might not seem like it to many. Almost impossible?
DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
As someone much smarter than me said something similar to "great ideas are common, execution is everything". Musk executes on ideas. I think he gets too much credit for having all the ideas. Similar to Jobs in that sense.