8 ms·

Is his stuff really that good? I can't shake the feeling that he has a strong tendency to exaggerate. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-mus

• albntomat0 5y ago
  Both can be true. SpaceX had the first reusable first stage, and Tesla provided large improvements in electric vehicles. Maybe those wouldn't have been possible for someone lacking the confidence/exaggeration of Elon Musk at the helm of the companies.
  • cma 5y ago
    The space shuttle boosters were reusable. It had a reusable first and second stage other than the tank.
    • whoisthemachine 5y ago
      According to this article [0], the cost per flight was ~$1.2B. Yes, it was re-usable, but was still very costly. [0] "The average cost per launch was about $1.2 billion (in 2010 dollars) during the shuttle's operational years from 1982 to 2010." https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-30-years.html https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...
      • cma 5y ago
        Yes but they were working with first of its kind technology from ~50years ago and could launch 7 astronauts. That it was expensive doesn't make SpaceX first.
        • TeMPOraL 5y ago
          The cost is literally the entire point of reusability, though. In case of Space Shuttle, the reusability of orbiter module achieved very little - between inspections and fixups of the orbiter, rebuilding SSME, building new external tanks, and expensive refurbs of the SRBs (where it was arguably cheaper to build new ones - a dip in salt water is very bad for rockets), the whole program was so expensive that the US would've been better off launching people in throwaway return capsules on regular rockets. Meanwhile, SpaceX is actually landing the rocket in upright position. No salt water dip. The whole rocket is so cheap and procedure is so normalized that by this point, most people have lost count as to how many flights a given F9 first stage already had. I think they've already flown at least one booster 6 times. This is how true reusability looks like - saving money, increasing cadence, and well on its way towards the ultimate goal: being able to land a rocket, refuel it, and launch it again, all within couple hours at most.
          • cma 5y ago
            Cost is not the entire point of reusability, especially the first to substantially pull it off (Space Shuttle). Demonstrating and developing the technology is part of it too. Starship for example will use ceramic tiles, not identical with, but still proved out by Space Shuttle, which used them first. You are also comparing amortized program cost of space shuttle and not final marginal cost (around $450million per launch at 7 astronaut capacity and higher payload capacity).
    • taneq 5y ago
      There's "reusable" and then there's reusable. For the most part the shuttle was reusable in name only.
• tailspin2019 5y ago
  My cognitive dissonance is strong when it comes to Elon. I have trouble sometimes reconciling the obvious flaws in his character on the one hand (though none of us are without flaws) and his extraordinary achievements on the other. He can be a bit of a dick, yes. He exaggerates, yes. He's also in my view one of the most talented and inspirational entrepreneurs of our generation. I don't see how people can call him an outright fraud with a straight face when you look at what he has delivered through Tesla and SpaceX. But he seems to elicit strong polarised opinions. And I get it. Lot's of noise about FSD, his constantly slipping timelines etc. I guess it depends what you choose to focus on.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • whoisthemachine 5y ago
    He can be an impressive engineer and entrepreneur while also being a jerk. I think it's ok to condemn his behaviors when they're out of line while also admiring the progress him and his companies have made in the industries they've targeted.
    • tailspin2019 5y ago
      Yep you summed that up better than I did.
    • Kalium 5y ago
      I feel like I've seen this before. A man is a relentless and masterful self-promoter, encourages a very public cult of personality, and puts out what are broadly considered superior products from his companies. He's also an egotistical prick. It's the Steve Jobs approach.
      • shrimpx 5y ago
        Steve Jobs wasn’t a memelord shilling dogecoin on social media and tv.
  • 5y ago
• eplanit 5y ago
  Those self-landing Falcon rockets don't impress you? Those capabilities sounded like exaggerated concepts not too long ago. Tesla cars and solar -- truly helping humanity move from fossil fuels (truly like in reality, at large scale), and now StarLink... Yeah, I'd say his outcomes are pretty good. Musk makes Jobs and Gates look like under-achievers.
  • LightG 5y ago
    Nope. The staff at Spacex impress the hell out of me. Likewise at Apple. Sure, Jobs, Musk, et al are catelising figures, but please ...
    • ItsMonkk 5y ago
      I've watched a decent amount of Jobs interviews, and I think you are down-playing the importance of this effect. He was a jerk, but he could spot talent, feverishly go after it, and then allow it to shine by giving it some of the most impactful problems that humanity is facing. Somehow he was able to wield a big company like most people could only handle small companies. I don't know how many people have this skill, and you first require to have a ton of capital at hand to make use of it, but of the people in the world who have that capital this skill seems rather rare.
    • leg100 5y ago
      Quite. When he said on SNL "I re-invented electric cars", I thought yes, you and 1000s of very smart engineers at Tesla did, not you alone. The leaders at the top of these companies get way too much credit for "having the vision". The vision too mostly likely came from many individuals who are not in the limelight and don't have the connections nor the cash. Musk otherwise comes across as vulgar and insecure.
      • peter422 5y ago
        I used to get bothered by this as well, but you’ve got to get over it. Most of the time the thousands of people don’t want to be in the limelight and it is better for the product/company to have a good and smart leader out there touting it without saying every single time that actually they didn’t do that much and Bill and Mary and Chloe and 500 other people actually did all the work. Look, we all know Musk and other CEOs didn’t invent these products/ideas on their own but storytelling is a big part of leadership.
• fossuser 5y ago
  Yeah it’s really good. Yes, he also exaggerates (or more accurately I think is too ambitious about timelines). It makes him miss sometimes, but it also is the reason SpaceX is where it is and they can turn around a rocket insanely quickly. He sets crazy goals and even their “failures” are still 10x better than the rest of the market. His plan for the company’s future is clear. The roadster -> S -> 3 worked, building out the charger network worked, the other vehicles and best-in-class software were really a bonus. During all of this the competition and the press ranged from ignoring them to directly hostile. People complained about why charging was less viable than gas for years, Tesla built out the charging network and fixed it. Dealerships in the US fought for their rent seeking protections and local power - tesla fought them and won. I think when nearly everyone is driving an EV within the next 20 years, people will look back on that NYT story where they intentionally killed the battery so they could have a cover story of a model S on a tow truck and will recognize it for what it was.
• parsimo2010 5y ago
  It’s hard to give a fair evaluation of whether something is good when there is no suitable comparison. The rest of the car industry is starting to get a clue and catch up, but the Model S had no comparable competition when it came out. It wasn’t like trading a few dollars or features for a Lexus vs. the same class of Mercedes, the Model S created its own class. And SpaceX is the same story. It vastly changed the space launch landscape, and isn’t done yet. Falcon 9 has no real competition until Vulcan has a successful launch. Falcon Heavy’s only competition is Delta IV Heavy, which is at the end of its life and all remaining launches are booked. Starship and Super Heavy could maybe be compared to SLS, but that’s kind of insulting when you consider the budget and track record of both programs. I guess my point is that while Elon does over-promise and doesn’t have a perfect hit rate, the main products have still really embarrassed the established players in each industry.
  • Gwypaas 5y ago
    Vulcan and Falcon 9 does not compete in the same league. Vulcan exists as a backup choice for the US government to have guaranteed access to space. All commercially relevant features regarding reusability to get the costs even close to Falcon 9 have been shelved for years. For example the "SMART Reuse" they touted when announcing the rocket.
  • zhaphod 5y ago
    He may promise the stars but does deliver the moon. i am just waiting to see who else is even delivering the moon.
• ericd 5y ago
  I didn't realize how good Teslas had gotten until I had the chance to spend significant time in one. Their insane acceleration was always apparent, but they've gotten really good in other ways as well. They've had a chance to do a clean sheet rethinking of cars, and it works wonderfully well. If you have your phone on you, you just walk up to the car and the door is unlocked and on by the time you touch it. There's no "start" button, you just press the brake, push the mode stalk to drive or reverse, and go. When you walk away, the car locks itself silently and turns off. Depending on whose key it depends, the seat, steering wheel, and mirrors are adjusted by the time you sit down. There's no "idling" to keep the AC on, so there's no guilt about doing it. They've recently added a very efficient heat pump that shares loops with the battery so the heat doesn't drain much, either. We spent an hour in the car with AC on recently, it used about 1 mile of range. I thought I'd hate the touchscreen controls, but what I didn't realize was that you generally don't need to use them while driving. Wipers and climate are automatic and work well, so there's no real need to adjust them. The voice control is incredibly good, and seems to have access to almost every non-driving setting. Press a button on the steering wheel, and speak "Set wipers to auto", "I'm cold", "Play Spanish Moon by Little Feat", "Navigate home". They all work as you'd expect. Jury is still out on "autopilot", lane following and dynamic cruise control are fine, but the onscreen world representation (cars, especially) is very jittery. I guess not too surprising, it's a DNN making guesses about the state of the world, but I'm surprised there's not a more persistent context vector between states. If it's very sure about a car being there in frames 1-10, it should really not expect that car to just blip out of existence in frame 11. But overall, I'm extremely impressed, and I think I'll have a hard time going back to cars by traditional automakers. The impression is of a holistic design that's extremely well integrated, rather than the impression of a hodge podge of poorly integrated new and old systems that I've gotten with any car with an "infotainment" system that I've ever used.
  • powerbroker 5y ago
    I have been driving two Teslas over the last few years. I find that their voice recognition to be roughly 75-85% accurate. More important, the manuals for the cars have not correctly described operation of voice commands for over a year. This speaks volumes to the software culture at Tesla. If you can't make the code conform to the documentation, you really can't trust the code.
• inglor_cz 5y ago
  Falcon 9 is a huge deal. The combo of capabilities and price tag is unique in the entire space industry. Prior to advent of Falcon 9 Block 5, people would automatically associate "big rockets" with "extremely expensive".