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I realise that Musk has flaws and has received criticism for the spat with the cave diver, ignoring COVID, and labour issues. Want to add that caveat. But beyo

I realise that Musk has flaws and has received criticism for the spat with the cave diver, ignoring COVID, and labour issues. Want to add that caveat. But beyond that, I feel like in terms of what he's doing Musk is some sort of time traveller, back from the future to boost humanity's progress. Why is he such an outlier? What can we as individuals learn from him? And more importantly, how do we make more Elon Musks?

spzb 6y ago
> And more importantly, how do we make more Elon Musks? Cloning. Which he's probably already working on.
ritchiea 6y ago
What has Elon Musk done for humanity? He got extremely wealthy from a payment processing website. Now he runs a company that makes luxury cars and another one that is or aims to be a global military arms logistical network [0]. If I had to pick amongst the exorbitantly wealth, without any serious research I'd say we need more people like Bill Gates. 0. https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-building-military-rocket-to-ship-weapons-anywhere-world https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-building-military-rocke...
- adolph 6y ago
  Wait, did that "payment processing website" not do something for humanity already? Maybe you are a young person without an appreciation for how that "website" changed the world and enabled new worlds of human activity stifled by the previously available payment options. https://fin.plaid.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-of-paypal/ https://fin.plaid.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-o...
- pharke 6y ago
  I guess you missed the decades before Bill went big on philanthropy and was much reviled as an anti-social workaholic, tyrannical CEO, and rabid monopolist.
  - ritchiea 6y ago
    And Elon Musk is not much of a philanthropist that I am aware of but is a guy who claims to care about the future of humanity so he builds luxury cars & rockets instead of doing things for humans alive today with difficult lives. Gates wasn’t always the Gates of today but whats good about Musk outside of the people who fantasize about living his life? The degree to which he’s any better for humanity than literally any other rich businessman seems dependent on buying into his marketing uncritically.
    - pharke 6y ago
      I think you're strawmaning Musk's popularity. People aren't fantasizing about living his life, they're adoring him for building the future that a lot of people want to live to see. Honestly, philanthropy should not be the main concern of billionaires. They should put their money and expertise to work running and funding businesses that have a direct impact on people's lives. Throwing money at problems is an incredibly inefficient and wasteful way to solve them since it more often than not gets vacuumed up by intermediaries and managerial bloat. If you really want to fix something you need to do the work yourself. Gates is actually quite good at this because he's very hands on, he personally researches (as in actually learns the science behind things) and visits the companies and orgs that he donates to. Guess what, that's also Musk's approach. The only difference is that Gates is retired with little interest in starting new companies, Musk is still young enough that he's in the thick of it managing his existing companies and occasionally starting a new one. That's what people with the means to should be doing, rolling up their sleeves and grappling with the problems themselves not throwing bags of money over a wall and hoping it lands on someone competent.
    - zaroth 6y ago
      This is such a bizarre take on Elon. The man has no wealth outside the companies he has built. There’s no cash just sitting in an account that he’s withholding from the poor cowering masses. He’s put every penny of his net worth into building companies which he believes will tremendously benefit humanity. From sustainable personal transportation, to clean energy, to space exploration, to human augmentation. If you think other things would be good for humanity, I encourage you to devote every waking hour of your life to pushing technological progress in those areas which you feel would be beneficial. If he never created SpaceX, Tesla, Boring, Neurolink, and just called it quits after PayPal he would have $180 million, let’s say he donates $160mm and funds the Red Cross for ~2 weeks. How is this better? In the meantime he’s parlayed $180mm into over $150 billion of value by significantly advancing technological progress in several major areas of global human concern.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  "A company that makes luxury cars" alright I'm going to ask you an honest question, 20 years ago would you have been on a website such as this, had it existed, talking about how we need electric cars? Or about how the US car industry is a cartel and we need new innovators to break into the industry? Its easy to call them luxury cars now, in hindsight, now that Elon Musk started the tech revolution that brought us full electric cars and a disrupted auto industry. That's not to point out that "a payment processing website" made the lives of millions of people easier, as will global wireless high speed internet and cheap, civilian access to space. I think you have an axe to grind, and it is clouding your ability to think rationally. There's a rule on this site that you're supposed to add to the discussion. I kindly request that you follow it.
Pelic4n 6y ago
>And more importantly, how do we make more Elon Musks? You take rich families from apartheid states that made their wealth of gems trade & slavery, get the kids excited about space, and give them a world-class education and a huge supply of slaves mining cobalt in africa.
- sabertoothed 6y ago
  Is this irony? Or are you serious?
  - throw1234651234 6y ago
    Not him, but I seriously want to know how rich Elon Musk's family is. He never worked a day at a conventional job in his life - this is a huge luxury.
    - _Microft 6y ago
      If Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk can be trusted, he worked different jobs as ancillary worker doing things like selling fruits, cleaning grain silos or even ovens in a factory. As student he is said to have hosted parties for students in a house he and a fellow student had rented to pay for the rent (same source).
      - throw1234651234 6y ago
        Not trolling, but the second point casts doubt on it all, given that I have a hard time imagining Musk hosting parties, let alone getting people to pay for them. This is also pre-hair, pre-money Elon Musk we are talking about.
        _Microft 6y ago
        I won't be looking up the page in the book for you but here is a search result instead: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/elon-musk-ran-a-nightclub-out-of-his-college-house-to-pay-for-rent.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/elon-musk-ran-a-nightclub-ou...
RivieraKid 6y ago
What annoys me that I would want to be a fan of someone like him but I just find his personality and behavior repulsive. After Jobs and Musk many people will now think you have to be an asshole to be successful and will try emulate the bad parts too. People are biased towards simple explanations of the world so they're biased towards either either Musk is amazing or Musk sucks. The reality is that he's a great enterpreneur but shitty human being.
- iso1631 6y ago
  Edison was an asshole too. And Franklin.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Examples of assholes abound, sure. Einstein was, by all accounts I've seen, a pretty nice fellow. Being an asshole isn't a required characteristic.
    - Zedronar 6y ago
      >Einstein was, by all accounts I've seen, a pretty nice fellow. Except to his wife.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        If we're setting "never had a failed relationship" as the bar, virtually everyone's an asshole.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Einstein's breakthroughs happened alone, in a tiny window of highly productive years in his twenties. The rest of his life contained little of note and he never needed to build a huge/excellent team to accomplish what he's famous for. The "asshole" aspects of famous business leaders occur because they need to drive enormous groups of people beyond what they thought they were capable of.
snikeris 6y ago
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-s...
dougmwne 6y ago
He has flaws. It's fine to recognize that. We all have flaws though and it's unrealistic to expect perfect opinions from anyone. Who decides what perfect is anyway? I absolutely think there is something to learn from his approach, though I think he has much in common with other highly successful people. My old boss actually had a similar attitude and she accomplished amazing things in her life. In the same way the person you replied to was describing, she would say she was going to do something and people would go "yeah sure." And then she would do them. It seemed like bullshit, then it was real. First and foremost, it's not about money or opportunity, those are just amplifiers. Without the money it wouldn't be Mars, it would be a local bike co-op. The magic is in an attitude that is low on fear, high on hope, unconcerned what others will think, and always reaching for the most awesome outcome, right on the edge of what seems possible. My old boss had a moment where her son had just started working mall retail, then suddenly he was meeting the CEO and becoming a brand ambassador. She said "he's starting to realize he can do awesome shit," like she was Obi-wan teaching Luke about the force. Most people have set an artificial cap on their potential and accomplishments by believing that the world is a harsh and shit place and that something truly good happening is an impossibility. And then all the opportunities to change their world in big and small ways sail right on past them. Put another way, I think it's about learning how to be a creator of new realities and not just living in other people's realities.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  What a positive and uplifting comment, thank you! I love the idea of amplifiers... it's a great counter-argument to naysayers, that it just changes the scale.
betwixthewires 6y ago
I think most people get into business to make money, but that he makes money because he needs it to accomplish a goal. Every decision he makes is to accomplish that goal. For most rich philanthropist types, they only come up with those goals after they make money. I think that plays a big role. Also the guy is methodical about it. He starts with first principles. That also plays a big part. And he takes risks. Not just risks with his money, but risks with everything he has going on. And calculated risks. You don't make more people like him, you can't. People like that make themselves.

spzb 6y ago

> And more importantly, how do we make more Elon Musks? Cloning. Which he's probably already working on.

ritchiea 6y ago

What has Elon Musk done for humanity? He got extremely wealthy from a payment processing website. Now he runs a company that makes luxury cars and another one that is or aims to be a global military arms logistical network [0]. If I had to pick amongst the exorbitantly wealth, without any serious research I'd say we need more people like Bill Gates. 0. https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-building-military-rocket-to-ship-weapons-anywhere-world https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-building-military-rocke...

adolph 6y ago
Wait, did that "payment processing website" not do something for humanity already? Maybe you are a young person without an appreciation for how that "website" changed the world and enabled new worlds of human activity stifled by the previously available payment options. https://fin.plaid.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-of-paypal/ https://fin.plaid.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-o...
pharke 6y ago
I guess you missed the decades before Bill went big on philanthropy and was much reviled as an anti-social workaholic, tyrannical CEO, and rabid monopolist.
- ritchiea 6y ago
  And Elon Musk is not much of a philanthropist that I am aware of but is a guy who claims to care about the future of humanity so he builds luxury cars & rockets instead of doing things for humans alive today with difficult lives. Gates wasn’t always the Gates of today but whats good about Musk outside of the people who fantasize about living his life? The degree to which he’s any better for humanity than literally any other rich businessman seems dependent on buying into his marketing uncritically.
  - pharke 6y ago
    I think you're strawmaning Musk's popularity. People aren't fantasizing about living his life, they're adoring him for building the future that a lot of people want to live to see. Honestly, philanthropy should not be the main concern of billionaires. They should put their money and expertise to work running and funding businesses that have a direct impact on people's lives. Throwing money at problems is an incredibly inefficient and wasteful way to solve them since it more often than not gets vacuumed up by intermediaries and managerial bloat. If you really want to fix something you need to do the work yourself. Gates is actually quite good at this because he's very hands on, he personally researches (as in actually learns the science behind things) and visits the companies and orgs that he donates to. Guess what, that's also Musk's approach. The only difference is that Gates is retired with little interest in starting new companies, Musk is still young enough that he's in the thick of it managing his existing companies and occasionally starting a new one. That's what people with the means to should be doing, rolling up their sleeves and grappling with the problems themselves not throwing bags of money over a wall and hoping it lands on someone competent.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    This is such a bizarre take on Elon. The man has no wealth outside the companies he has built. There’s no cash just sitting in an account that he’s withholding from the poor cowering masses. He’s put every penny of his net worth into building companies which he believes will tremendously benefit humanity. From sustainable personal transportation, to clean energy, to space exploration, to human augmentation. If you think other things would be good for humanity, I encourage you to devote every waking hour of your life to pushing technological progress in those areas which you feel would be beneficial. If he never created SpaceX, Tesla, Boring, Neurolink, and just called it quits after PayPal he would have $180 million, let’s say he donates $160mm and funds the Red Cross for ~2 weeks. How is this better? In the meantime he’s parlayed $180mm into over $150 billion of value by significantly advancing technological progress in several major areas of global human concern.
betwixthewires 6y ago
"A company that makes luxury cars" alright I'm going to ask you an honest question, 20 years ago would you have been on a website such as this, had it existed, talking about how we need electric cars? Or about how the US car industry is a cartel and we need new innovators to break into the industry? Its easy to call them luxury cars now, in hindsight, now that Elon Musk started the tech revolution that brought us full electric cars and a disrupted auto industry. That's not to point out that "a payment processing website" made the lives of millions of people easier, as will global wireless high speed internet and cheap, civilian access to space. I think you have an axe to grind, and it is clouding your ability to think rationally. There's a rule on this site that you're supposed to add to the discussion. I kindly request that you follow it.

Pelic4n 6y ago

>And more importantly, how do we make more Elon Musks? You take rich families from apartheid states that made their wealth of gems trade & slavery, get the kids excited about space, and give them a world-class education and a huge supply of slaves mining cobalt in africa.

sabertoothed 6y ago
Is this irony? Or are you serious?
- throw1234651234 6y ago
  Not him, but I seriously want to know how rich Elon Musk's family is. He never worked a day at a conventional job in his life - this is a huge luxury.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    If Ashlee Vance's biography of Musk can be trusted, he worked different jobs as ancillary worker doing things like selling fruits, cleaning grain silos or even ovens in a factory. As student he is said to have hosted parties for students in a house he and a fellow student had rented to pay for the rent (same source).
    - throw1234651234 6y ago
      Not trolling, but the second point casts doubt on it all, given that I have a hard time imagining Musk hosting parties, let alone getting people to pay for them. This is also pre-hair, pre-money Elon Musk we are talking about.
      - _Microft 6y ago
        I won't be looking up the page in the book for you but here is a search result instead: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/elon-musk-ran-a-nightclub-out-of-his-college-house-to-pay-for-rent.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/elon-musk-ran-a-nightclub-ou...

RivieraKid 6y ago

What annoys me that I would want to be a fan of someone like him but I just find his personality and behavior repulsive. After Jobs and Musk many people will now think you have to be an asshole to be successful and will try emulate the bad parts too. People are biased towards simple explanations of the world so they're biased towards either either Musk is amazing or Musk sucks. The reality is that he's a great enterpreneur but shitty human being.

iso1631 6y ago
Edison was an asshole too. And Franklin.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Examples of assholes abound, sure. Einstein was, by all accounts I've seen, a pretty nice fellow. Being an asshole isn't a required characteristic.
  - Zedronar 6y ago
    >Einstein was, by all accounts I've seen, a pretty nice fellow. Except to his wife.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      If we're setting "never had a failed relationship" as the bar, virtually everyone's an asshole.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Einstein's breakthroughs happened alone, in a tiny window of highly productive years in his twenties. The rest of his life contained little of note and he never needed to build a huge/excellent team to accomplish what he's famous for. The "asshole" aspects of famous business leaders occur because they need to drive enormous groups of people beyond what they thought they were capable of.

snikeris 6y ago

https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-s...

dougmwne 6y ago

He has flaws. It's fine to recognize that. We all have flaws though and it's unrealistic to expect perfect opinions from anyone. Who decides what perfect is anyway? I absolutely think there is something to learn from his approach, though I think he has much in common with other highly successful people. My old boss actually had a similar attitude and she accomplished amazing things in her life. In the same way the person you replied to was describing, she would say she was going to do something and people would go "yeah sure." And then she would do them. It seemed like bullshit, then it was real. First and foremost, it's not about money or opportunity, those are just amplifiers. Without the money it wouldn't be Mars, it would be a local bike co-op. The magic is in an attitude that is low on fear, high on hope, unconcerned what others will think, and always reaching for the most awesome outcome, right on the edge of what seems possible. My old boss had a moment where her son had just started working mall retail, then suddenly he was meeting the CEO and becoming a brand ambassador. She said "he's starting to realize he can do awesome shit," like she was Obi-wan teaching Luke about the force. Most people have set an artificial cap on their potential and accomplishments by believing that the world is a harsh and shit place and that something truly good happening is an impossibility. And then all the opportunities to change their world in big and small ways sail right on past them. Put another way, I think it's about learning how to be a creator of new realities and not just living in other people's realities.

randomsearch 6y ago
What a positive and uplifting comment, thank you! I love the idea of amplifiers... it's a great counter-argument to naysayers, that it just changes the scale.

betwixthewires 6y ago

I think most people get into business to make money, but that he makes money because he needs it to accomplish a goal. Every decision he makes is to accomplish that goal. For most rich philanthropist types, they only come up with those goals after they make money. I think that plays a big role. Also the guy is methodical about it. He starts with first principles. That also plays a big part. And he takes risks. Not just risks with his money, but risks with everything he has going on. And calculated risks. You don't make more people like him, you can't. People like that make themselves.