This is true, but one should still consider that Musk tends to attract some of the best, brightest, and highly motivated engineers and scientists (despite those

This is true, but one should still consider that Musk tends to attract some of the best, brightest, and highly motivated engineers and scientists (despite those who would argue this is false, I think it's quite clear who is correct when looking at the ventures of Alumni of his companies and what his companies have produced so far...) As well as a good amount of non-bureaucratically/red-tape-restricted financial backing. Those conditions seem highly likely to be able to produce results compared to other companies in the space - but I guess only time will tell. For a funnier and maybe slightly less related example like yours though... There is a surviving Japanese company that made samurai swords for a few centuries or so - they now make nail clippers, and they're some of the best damn nail clippers one can buy on this planet. They then ventured into making tweezers as well. You would expect that if they can make such amazing and highly acclaimed nail clippers, they can probably make damn good tweezers as well. Their tweezers are absolutely awful and they've never revised them for as long as they've been selling them.