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Similar in Germany a lot of voices say: Billionaires are immoral and shouldn’t exist. Kind of terrifying that success is made evil. What would be the consequen

Similar in Germany a lot of voices say: Billionaires are immoral and shouldn’t exist. Kind of terrifying that success is made evil. What would be the consequences? Well you wouldn’t have tesla or spacex. As far as I see a self made billionaire is much more capable spending money then the government. In my opinion that is the main point.

thundergolfer 6y ago
Success is not being made evil. That is a highly perverse twisting of the idea. Nearly all success in the world involves no billionaire. SpaceX’s achievements are at least partially the credit of Elon, and it is a possibility that his billionaire status was necessary for getting SpaceX off the ground, but a massive government loan was also involved. Also, man went to the moon 60 years ago with no billionaire involved. A massive success.
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
It's insane how this mythology persists. SpaceX would not exist without two things: 1. All the space race era research NASA published openly with no strings. 2. US Gov as SpaceX's anchor customer. I mean Elon is currently going after 16 billion in government grants related to this stuff. His success story IS LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE of this "government sucks entrepreneurs rule" nonsense cheerleading.
- MichaelRazum 6y ago
  Still it is true: Without Elon no Spacex. Without Elon no Tesla. That is a fact. Would Elon not be billionaire I would bet both companies would have never existed.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    The companies as formed probably not, but some company occupying those opportunities? Inevitable imo. Both were strongly supported by the underlying trends and context. There was gonna be an explosion in EVs based on the trajectory of lion pricing alone. Making an aspirational/braggart product is a fairly straightforward strategy to tap into that moving top to bottom. SpaceX is competing with a deliberately created government monopoly. Those fat margins would have attracted someone sooner or later. What mattered was the willingness to push through the legal challenge to get a seat at the table.

thundergolfer 6y ago

Success is not being made evil. That is a highly perverse twisting of the idea. Nearly all success in the world involves no billionaire. SpaceX’s achievements are at least partially the credit of Elon, and it is a possibility that his billionaire status was necessary for getting SpaceX off the ground, but a massive government loan was also involved. Also, man went to the moon 60 years ago with no billionaire involved. A massive success.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago

It's insane how this mythology persists. SpaceX would not exist without two things: 1. All the space race era research NASA published openly with no strings. 2. US Gov as SpaceX's anchor customer. I mean Elon is currently going after 16 billion in government grants related to this stuff. His success story IS LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE of this "government sucks entrepreneurs rule" nonsense cheerleading.

MichaelRazum 6y ago
Still it is true: Without Elon no Spacex. Without Elon no Tesla. That is a fact. Would Elon not be billionaire I would bet both companies would have never existed.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  The companies as formed probably not, but some company occupying those opportunities? Inevitable imo. Both were strongly supported by the underlying trends and context. There was gonna be an explosion in EVs based on the trajectory of lion pricing alone. Making an aspirational/braggart product is a fairly straightforward strategy to tap into that moving top to bottom. SpaceX is competing with a deliberately created government monopoly. Those fat margins would have attracted someone sooner or later. What mattered was the willingness to push through the legal challenge to get a seat at the table.