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Totally serious question: if Musk is so bad at engineering, to the extent that he's supposedly (?) not just making bad calls himself but also sabotaging the abi

Totally serious question: if Musk is so bad at engineering, to the extent that he's supposedly (?) not just making bad calls himself but also sabotaging the ability of those under him to make good calls, how has he ended up in charge of two companies that have both found (contemporarily) unprecedented success at scale in markets that have been absolutely dominated by huge incumbents for many decades? Tesla and SpaceX both seem to (at the very least) require a facility for making good technical decisions at a relatively high level, whether it's Musk or someone else. Is he just astronomically lucky? Or such an incredible bully that he bends the very fabric of reality to his will? It's one (valid) thing to criticize his persona[lity], but his results seem rather more difficult to argue with.

dragontamer 5y ago
He's really good at raising money. Which is a skill. An incredibly useful skill, and arguably more important for someone in the position of CEO. He's grabbed $20+ Billion for Tesla. He's grabbed multiple Billions for SpaceX. Its a totally different skill than his persona identifies with. No one else I know of in the modern market has successfully grabbed as much money from people as he has. --------- Pretty much every time I've seen him go back to the market (be it 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020...) to ask for more money, he convinces the banks, the stock traders, everyone to give him more money over-and-over-and-over again. Not just a little bit of money either: the amount keeps growing bigger and bigger. Which btw: happens to be the skill Edison had over Tesla. But Edison made a lasting company (General Electric) for over a century, while Tesla died dirt poor with only his patents in his name. So once again: the Edison model of raising money and hyping up your inventions win again (even if your underlings made the inventions. But you can always buy more underlings with the money you raise) Making a $Billion mistake really isn't a big deal when you can raise something like $3 or $4 Billion per year from stock market deals and hype. Many others try to do what Elon Musk does. But they all fail. Elon Musk is the king of raising money.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Edison's company lasted, but it looks like he may not have gone down in history as the better man. The varnished history held strong for a long time, but historians slowly uncovered more details and truth and it seems that Tesla has gone down in history as the genius inventor and Edison will be remembered as an extremely aggressive, but very successful business man.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  You know that both of these companies are profitable, right?
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    You know that Tesla's $1 Billion/quarter profits pales in comparison to Toyota's $7 Billion/quarter, right? And yet, Tesla is "worth more" as a company than Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen, GM, and Ford put together. And there are a myriad of long-term issues being put out on display here. Such as the FSD not working (promised "Coast-to-Coast" Full self driving back in 2017). Or the huge uptick in Model3 / Model Y quality complaints (coinciding with these stories about how rushed and impromptu the assembly lines were, such as what is discussed in the article). -------- That's the thing. Every year, Elon comes back to the market with a story for why the stock is worth even more money than before (he needs to keep doing this to get another $5 Billion from a secondary offering). Its so predictable. Elon says "this is the last raise I need". He creates some kind of "Hype Day", be it the battery-swap day, or solar tiles day, or some other promise he has no intent on actually delivering (or at a minimum: has no plans to actually deploy. Ex: Neither Cybertruck nor Tesla-Semi seem to have any concrete plans). He uses that hype to generate real money for the company. The hype results in real money getting raised (ex: Cybertruck reservations). He uses the Cybertruck reservations to go to the stock market and extract more money from investors (Look at all of these reservations, we'll all be rich), so investors give him money too. Then 5 years later, everyone has collective amnesia and forgets that Elon promised battery swaps, self-inserting "snake chargers", or full-self-driving to actually drive coast-to-coast, or "solar tiles'. Just in time for the new hype project and everyone hands money to Elon Musk again.
    - fallingknife 5y ago
      Are you short the stock?
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        No. Are you long the stock? Kind of an odd question to ask.
- caconym_ 5y ago
  So you're essentially saying that if you look at any high-profile success of Tesla or SpaceX, you'll see a result that could have been accomplished by others working in the field for substantially less money? This seems really questionable to me. I see a fair amount of investment in these fields, but nobody else--even companies of comparable vintage, with comparable money on tap--has come close to the success of Musk's companies. And at the beginning of the time range you're talking about, essentially the last 5 years, both companies had arguably already achieved--if not yet the relatively dominant positions they enjoy now--at least the momentum that got them here. Compared to the vaporous field of EV and space launch startups, they seem like obvious targets for investment.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > So you're essentially saying that if you look at any high-profile success of Tesla or SpaceX, you'll see a result that could have been accomplished by others working in the field for substantially less money? No. You're the one saying that. What I said was what I said in my above post. Elon Musk is incredibly good at raising money, and leverages this skill to the max in his companies. No one else in the world seems to compare against Elon Musk at generating hype and extracting money from bonds, secondary offerings, and other maneuvers in the modern stock market. Feel free to disagree with me on this issue, but I have the numbers. The amount that public companies raise from bonds and/or stock offerings is public. I don't feel like digging them up right now, but I'm confident that I can procure the numbers if you push me on that subject.
    - caconym_ 5y ago
      > No. You're the one saying that. I disagree. Your first claim was that Musk is a bad engineer whose poor technical leadership verges on self-sabotage. I asked why, then, are his companies so successful? To which you responded that he is good at raising money, implying that his companies have succeeded primarily because he raised a lot of money for them. Since you previously criticized his technical leadership, the implication is that his companies succeed on the back of this money-raising ability despite his technical leadership. Can you please explain how else I am supposed to reconcile your claims about Musk's strengths and weaknesses as a leader wrt. his companies' singular success per my first comment in this subthread?
- nickik 5y ago
  Wow, what an incredible bunch of nonsense. SpaceX and Tesla were mostly funded by him because he couldn't find investors. Literally nobody wanted to touch electric cars or rockets. Pretty strange for a guy who is supposedly some mastermind investor whisperer. They had massive amounts of funding issues and went almost bankrupt because there were so few people willing to invest. > He's grabbed $20+ Billion for Tesla. Tesla went threw multiple founding rounds and they have like $17 billion in cash on hand and have retired almost all debt. So what exactly is your problem? Their automotive margin and operating margin are industry leading and the company has positive cashflow. Go and compare Tesla funding with other EV companies like Lucid or Rivian. Tesla actually research starved, not over-funded. > Pretty much every time I've seen him go back to the market (be it 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020...) to ask for more money, he convinces the banks, the stock traders, everyone to give him more money over-and-over-and-over again. They literally grew a manufacturing company from nothing to a serious global player. Look at their growth rate in deliveries over the years you mentioned. And the later rounds were popular, guess what, because the company successfully executed with the last investment and fulfilled what investors wanted. That is literally exactly what the whole point of investing is. Look at the growth of his companies. Claiming its all because of raising money is just so incredibly idiotic. Its the other way around, he can raise money because his company show growth rate and they use the invest money well. There were competitors companies who raised far more, many of them are now gone. Literally ask anybody who has invested in SpaceX or Tesla in the last 10 years (other then traders) if they think their investment was worth it. > Which btw: happens to be the skill Edison had over Tesla. But Edison made a lasting company (General Electric) for over a century, while Tesla died dirt poor with only his patents in his name. Edison was a better business men but he was also a smart guy. This idiotic binary thinking of Tesla smart <-> Edison evil business men is overplayed nonsense. Tesla died poor mostly because his visionary ideas didn't actually work in practice and his attempts at independent business failed because of his technical misunderstandings. Yes, Tesla invented some brilliant things, but he also had ideas that didn't make any sense at all. > Many others try to do what Elon Musk does. But they all fail. Elon Musk is the king of raising money. Yes, they fail because they can raise money and then don't execute, and that's why people wont give them more money. SpaceX managed to build the first orbital rocket at comparable budget to companies that did it 10 years later (and most have not even flown), when the political and technological environment for doing so was much easier. Virgin Orbit raised 500M for a much smaller rocket. RocketLab also raised 100M but built a much smaller rocket. Relativity has raised almost 1 billion before they even launched their first rocket. Firefly aerospace had 100M+ and went bankrupt and has since been revived and has raised another few 100M, and they only now are about to launch for the first time. And all of these companies faces a much, much friendly investor base and much friendly government. Do the same and compare how much money Tesla raised to get to 100000 cars, and then compare it to how much EV companies now have raised before even delivered a single car. You can even go back and compare it to all other automotive startups in the US history, go ahead and honestly evaluate it. Fact is, Tesla was capital efficient and still are. The story that his companies constantly make mistakes and fail to execute and this is simply papered over with more money raising is simply factually incorrect. It simply doesn't hold up. To make the argument that SpaceX was successful because they raised so much more money then the competition is the height of idiocy. If you look at how much access to capital the competition had, SpaceX was basically made fun of for a decade because nobody thought such a small and insignificantly funded company they could build a rocket that could compete internationally and on complex military contracts. If it was about money, and how much you can raise the competition would have crushed them.

dragontamer 5y ago

He's really good at raising money. Which is a skill. An incredibly useful skill, and arguably more important for someone in the position of CEO. He's grabbed $20+ Billion for Tesla. He's grabbed multiple Billions for SpaceX. Its a totally different skill than his persona identifies with. No one else I know of in the modern market has successfully grabbed as much money from people as he has. --------- Pretty much every time I've seen him go back to the market (be it 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020...) to ask for more money, he convinces the banks, the stock traders, everyone to give him more money over-and-over-and-over again. Not just a little bit of money either: the amount keeps growing bigger and bigger. Which btw: happens to be the skill Edison had over Tesla. But Edison made a lasting company (General Electric) for over a century, while Tesla died dirt poor with only his patents in his name. So once again: the Edison model of raising money and hyping up your inventions win again (even if your underlings made the inventions. But you can always buy more underlings with the money you raise) Making a $Billion mistake really isn't a big deal when you can raise something like $3 or $4 Billion per year from stock market deals and hype. Many others try to do what Elon Musk does. But they all fail. Elon Musk is the king of raising money.

jjeaff 5y ago
Edison's company lasted, but it looks like he may not have gone down in history as the better man. The varnished history held strong for a long time, but historians slowly uncovered more details and truth and it seems that Tesla has gone down in history as the genius inventor and Edison will be remembered as an extremely aggressive, but very successful business man.
bpodgursky 5y ago
You know that both of these companies are profitable, right?
- dragontamer 5y ago
  You know that Tesla's $1 Billion/quarter profits pales in comparison to Toyota's $7 Billion/quarter, right? And yet, Tesla is "worth more" as a company than Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen, GM, and Ford put together. And there are a myriad of long-term issues being put out on display here. Such as the FSD not working (promised "Coast-to-Coast" Full self driving back in 2017). Or the huge uptick in Model3 / Model Y quality complaints (coinciding with these stories about how rushed and impromptu the assembly lines were, such as what is discussed in the article). -------- That's the thing. Every year, Elon comes back to the market with a story for why the stock is worth even more money than before (he needs to keep doing this to get another $5 Billion from a secondary offering). Its so predictable. Elon says "this is the last raise I need". He creates some kind of "Hype Day", be it the battery-swap day, or solar tiles day, or some other promise he has no intent on actually delivering (or at a minimum: has no plans to actually deploy. Ex: Neither Cybertruck nor Tesla-Semi seem to have any concrete plans). He uses that hype to generate real money for the company. The hype results in real money getting raised (ex: Cybertruck reservations). He uses the Cybertruck reservations to go to the stock market and extract more money from investors (Look at all of these reservations, we'll all be rich), so investors give him money too. Then 5 years later, everyone has collective amnesia and forgets that Elon promised battery swaps, self-inserting "snake chargers", or full-self-driving to actually drive coast-to-coast, or "solar tiles'. Just in time for the new hype project and everyone hands money to Elon Musk again.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Are you short the stock?
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      No. Are you long the stock? Kind of an odd question to ask.
caconym_ 5y ago
So you're essentially saying that if you look at any high-profile success of Tesla or SpaceX, you'll see a result that could have been accomplished by others working in the field for substantially less money? This seems really questionable to me. I see a fair amount of investment in these fields, but nobody else--even companies of comparable vintage, with comparable money on tap--has come close to the success of Musk's companies. And at the beginning of the time range you're talking about, essentially the last 5 years, both companies had arguably already achieved--if not yet the relatively dominant positions they enjoy now--at least the momentum that got them here. Compared to the vaporous field of EV and space launch startups, they seem like obvious targets for investment.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > So you're essentially saying that if you look at any high-profile success of Tesla or SpaceX, you'll see a result that could have been accomplished by others working in the field for substantially less money? No. You're the one saying that. What I said was what I said in my above post. Elon Musk is incredibly good at raising money, and leverages this skill to the max in his companies. No one else in the world seems to compare against Elon Musk at generating hype and extracting money from bonds, secondary offerings, and other maneuvers in the modern stock market. Feel free to disagree with me on this issue, but I have the numbers. The amount that public companies raise from bonds and/or stock offerings is public. I don't feel like digging them up right now, but I'm confident that I can procure the numbers if you push me on that subject.
  - caconym_ 5y ago
    > No. You're the one saying that. I disagree. Your first claim was that Musk is a bad engineer whose poor technical leadership verges on self-sabotage. I asked why, then, are his companies so successful? To which you responded that he is good at raising money, implying that his companies have succeeded primarily because he raised a lot of money for them. Since you previously criticized his technical leadership, the implication is that his companies succeed on the back of this money-raising ability despite his technical leadership. Can you please explain how else I am supposed to reconcile your claims about Musk's strengths and weaknesses as a leader wrt. his companies' singular success per my first comment in this subthread?
nickik 5y ago
Wow, what an incredible bunch of nonsense. SpaceX and Tesla were mostly funded by him because he couldn't find investors. Literally nobody wanted to touch electric cars or rockets. Pretty strange for a guy who is supposedly some mastermind investor whisperer. They had massive amounts of funding issues and went almost bankrupt because there were so few people willing to invest. > He's grabbed $20+ Billion for Tesla. Tesla went threw multiple founding rounds and they have like $17 billion in cash on hand and have retired almost all debt. So what exactly is your problem? Their automotive margin and operating margin are industry leading and the company has positive cashflow. Go and compare Tesla funding with other EV companies like Lucid or Rivian. Tesla actually research starved, not over-funded. > Pretty much every time I've seen him go back to the market (be it 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020...) to ask for more money, he convinces the banks, the stock traders, everyone to give him more money over-and-over-and-over again. They literally grew a manufacturing company from nothing to a serious global player. Look at their growth rate in deliveries over the years you mentioned. And the later rounds were popular, guess what, because the company successfully executed with the last investment and fulfilled what investors wanted. That is literally exactly what the whole point of investing is. Look at the growth of his companies. Claiming its all because of raising money is just so incredibly idiotic. Its the other way around, he can raise money because his company show growth rate and they use the invest money well. There were competitors companies who raised far more, many of them are now gone. Literally ask anybody who has invested in SpaceX or Tesla in the last 10 years (other then traders) if they think their investment was worth it. > Which btw: happens to be the skill Edison had over Tesla. But Edison made a lasting company (General Electric) for over a century, while Tesla died dirt poor with only his patents in his name. Edison was a better business men but he was also a smart guy. This idiotic binary thinking of Tesla smart <-> Edison evil business men is overplayed nonsense. Tesla died poor mostly because his visionary ideas didn't actually work in practice and his attempts at independent business failed because of his technical misunderstandings. Yes, Tesla invented some brilliant things, but he also had ideas that didn't make any sense at all. > Many others try to do what Elon Musk does. But they all fail. Elon Musk is the king of raising money. Yes, they fail because they can raise money and then don't execute, and that's why people wont give them more money. SpaceX managed to build the first orbital rocket at comparable budget to companies that did it 10 years later (and most have not even flown), when the political and technological environment for doing so was much easier. Virgin Orbit raised 500M for a much smaller rocket. RocketLab also raised 100M but built a much smaller rocket. Relativity has raised almost 1 billion before they even launched their first rocket. Firefly aerospace had 100M+ and went bankrupt and has since been revived and has raised another few 100M, and they only now are about to launch for the first time. And all of these companies faces a much, much friendly investor base and much friendly government. Do the same and compare how much money Tesla raised to get to 100000 cars, and then compare it to how much EV companies now have raised before even delivered a single car. You can even go back and compare it to all other automotive startups in the US history, go ahead and honestly evaluate it. Fact is, Tesla was capital efficient and still are. The story that his companies constantly make mistakes and fail to execute and this is simply papered over with more money raising is simply factually incorrect. It simply doesn't hold up. To make the argument that SpaceX was successful because they raised so much more money then the competition is the height of idiocy. If you look at how much access to capital the competition had, SpaceX was basically made fun of for a decade because nobody thought such a small and insignificantly funded company they could build a rocket that could compete internationally and on complex military contracts. If it was about money, and how much you can raise the competition would have crushed them.