5 ms·

The problem is that he plays like he has nothing to lose. He has a vision and a plan and he is willing to put everything on the line and sacrifice it all in th

The problem is that he plays like he has nothing to lose. He has a vision and a plan and he is willing to put everything on the line and sacrifice it all in the pursuit of that objective. He's a problem solver. He's not scared of being unpredictable. He's creative as fuck. He will do whatever he has to do to achieve his vision. He didn't make his plan haphazardly or on a whim. He made it having observed millions of other people play this game and seeing how the market reacted to their playbooks. He developed his own playbook based on what he's seen win and lose thousands of times in the past 50 years. If anyone thinks he didn't study every other car manufacturer intensely before he decided he could do a better job, they're foolish. Musk is an intelligent man. He doesn't go off half cocked just because he's an arrogant fucker (although, I'm not arguing that he isn't), he sees a path that nobody else is seeing and he's steering his companies along that path to greatness and profit by changing the world for the better. "It’s one of the characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he’s leading to realize whatever he’s dreaming." - Benjamin Zander You cannot fight and win with someone like that. That's the kind of mentality that will either change the world for the better or destroy it. You'd better hope he's on your side.

randomsearch 8y ago
From one POV, Musk really has nothing to lose. Even if all his companies crash and burn, he has taken a lot of resources and spent them on things that matter: space exploration, combating global warming, etc No matter what happens, all that engineering talent will continue to exist. All that experience gained still exists. And some of the giant infrastructure that he’s built will inevitably be reused if his companies don’t work out. I feel like he’s exploiting the capitalist system to get stuff done, and I think he is prepared for everything to collapse because much of what he has created will survive no matter what. Who cares about the numbers on some balance sheet now that we can reuse spacecraft and build great electric cars? Those numbers are a drop in the ocean anyhows.
- balabaster 8y ago
  And that matters. In the grand scheme of things. That may be all that matters. For that, I take my hat off to him.
- jklinger410 8y ago
  Agreeing with both of you but want to chime in with some conspiracy theory stuff. The only way you beat Musk is by going somewhere that his idealism won't allow him to go, while still maintaining positive public opinion of yourself as his competitor. I am looking directly at the Oil and Big Auto companies when I say people have incentivized bloggers (aka "journalists") and paid online trolls to make him look like the bad guy, and that they will likely then go a "step too far" in order to beat him. His Twitter tirades have either been a poor attempt at refuting this, or a game of chicken on that front as well. Oil and Big Auto do have something to lose. Musk's bet is also on human goodness, that greater society will allow him to win because he is genuine. That whole "the truth will come out" or "good always wins in the end" trope. One could easily see him in an orange jumpsuit one day just for daring to upset industries that have created so much evil.
  - balabaster 8y ago
    The issue with that trope is that while Musk's bet on good always winning in the end, that may not be for many generations. We're still fighting for an equality that's been fought for thousands of years. Fanatical Muslims fighting against Fanatical Christians as a facade covering a war for resources. Who is good? Who is bad? Are either one really any worse than the other? I'm hoping that his bet moves us towards a more utopian society. Sadly, while I'm an optimist, my cynicism prevents me from believing that humanity will allow us to get there. The winners are the ones that write the history books, while the losers are painted to be evil, if they're even included in the history books at all. Some are even written out of the history books and not taught in schools in the hope that in a generation or two they're forgotten. Humanity doesn't exactly have a very inspiring track record when it comes to good always winning... in fact, its track record is pretty abysmal.
  - Angostura 8y ago
    > I am looking directly at the Oil and Big Auto companies when I say people have incentivized bloggers (aka "journalists") and paid online trolls to make him look like the bad guy They made him spout off about the Thailand-based diver being a paedophile? He bought this stuff on himself, you don't need a conspiracy to explain why the shine came off.
QuantumGood 8y ago
He didn't really make "efficient financing" part of his portfolio of obsessions until recently. That's why suddenly the Musk magic/insanity began applying to doing more with amazingly less on the financial side.

randomsearch 8y ago

From one POV, Musk really has nothing to lose. Even if all his companies crash and burn, he has taken a lot of resources and spent them on things that matter: space exploration, combating global warming, etc No matter what happens, all that engineering talent will continue to exist. All that experience gained still exists. And some of the giant infrastructure that he’s built will inevitably be reused if his companies don’t work out. I feel like he’s exploiting the capitalist system to get stuff done, and I think he is prepared for everything to collapse because much of what he has created will survive no matter what. Who cares about the numbers on some balance sheet now that we can reuse spacecraft and build great electric cars? Those numbers are a drop in the ocean anyhows.

balabaster 8y ago
And that matters. In the grand scheme of things. That may be all that matters. For that, I take my hat off to him.
jklinger410 8y ago
Agreeing with both of you but want to chime in with some conspiracy theory stuff. The only way you beat Musk is by going somewhere that his idealism won't allow him to go, while still maintaining positive public opinion of yourself as his competitor. I am looking directly at the Oil and Big Auto companies when I say people have incentivized bloggers (aka "journalists") and paid online trolls to make him look like the bad guy, and that they will likely then go a "step too far" in order to beat him. His Twitter tirades have either been a poor attempt at refuting this, or a game of chicken on that front as well. Oil and Big Auto do have something to lose. Musk's bet is also on human goodness, that greater society will allow him to win because he is genuine. That whole "the truth will come out" or "good always wins in the end" trope. One could easily see him in an orange jumpsuit one day just for daring to upset industries that have created so much evil.
- balabaster 8y ago
  The issue with that trope is that while Musk's bet on good always winning in the end, that may not be for many generations. We're still fighting for an equality that's been fought for thousands of years. Fanatical Muslims fighting against Fanatical Christians as a facade covering a war for resources. Who is good? Who is bad? Are either one really any worse than the other? I'm hoping that his bet moves us towards a more utopian society. Sadly, while I'm an optimist, my cynicism prevents me from believing that humanity will allow us to get there. The winners are the ones that write the history books, while the losers are painted to be evil, if they're even included in the history books at all. Some are even written out of the history books and not taught in schools in the hope that in a generation or two they're forgotten. Humanity doesn't exactly have a very inspiring track record when it comes to good always winning... in fact, its track record is pretty abysmal.
- Angostura 8y ago
  > I am looking directly at the Oil and Big Auto companies when I say people have incentivized bloggers (aka "journalists") and paid online trolls to make him look like the bad guy They made him spout off about the Thailand-based diver being a paedophile? He bought this stuff on himself, you don't need a conspiracy to explain why the shine came off.

QuantumGood 8y ago

He didn't really make "efficient financing" part of his portfolio of obsessions until recently. That's why suddenly the Musk magic/insanity began applying to doing more with amazingly less on the financial side.