5 ms·

He arguably didn't know what he was doing with Tesla or SpaceX, nor The Boring Company et al, though he seems quite good at solving for problems he deems worthy

by loceng 5y ago

He arguably didn't know what he was doing with Tesla or SpaceX, nor The Boring Company et al, though he seems quite good at solving for problems he deems worthy enough of his attention - or that draw his attention strongly enough. Elon also doesn't need to innovate himself, he simply needs to be a signal, a beacon or lighthouse to others who know they are capable of innovating - and where they may now actually attempt to work for/at Twitter/with Elon because they may now believe they have a chance of implementing systems as they may believe Elon will be able to understand their design - and therefore getting approval.

Spooky23 5y ago
The obvious question is, “What problem is he seeking to solve?”
smt88 5y ago
SpaceX seems like a success. Starlink probably will be, too. Tesla survived because of government subsidies and a neverending deluge of hype from Musk. Boring Company is utter nonsense and a huge failure. That track record seems... pretty random. Maybe Musk was an important factor, maybe his engineering and marketing teams were, maybe luck was the most important thing.
- cduzz 5y ago
  Regarding tesla, lots of companies survive entirely because of Government Subsidies. Resource extraction from public lands, no bid cost + contracts for defense department projects, last mile monopolies for cable companies. You going to then argue "but we'd have it all better if there were no meddling government!" ? There are plenty of places that have no government and they seem pretty miserable. People (ideally) select other people every interval of time to make important decisions (aka "government"); sometimes those decisions adversely affect some people and help others disproportionately (your job is cutting down trees and 99% of the trees are gone? Well, you may lose your job before cutting down that last 1% because the trees have value as trees instead of lumber; sorry them's the breaks). Life is hard and full of difficult choices. There are winners and losers. It's better for everyone to make decisions by discussion and consensus rather than violence. But free speech is "will the government arrest/fine/murder you for what you say (or don't say)" not "do I have to listen to you blather on when I'd rather not". There's tremendous nuance to "free speech". If I'm a cake maker and you ask me to make a cake saying "Fuck Jewish Space Lasers!" can I say no I'd rather not? I'm not sure. Maybe I've got terms of service already, maybe I'm just a harried cake maker trying to be civil and a good person and I'd rather not be an asshole even by proxy. You could probably switch the message to "Happy anniversary Steve and Paul!" and offend some other set of people. We seem to live in a society where some set of people just want to be rude and uncivil and force us all to watch like we're in a clockwork orange needing programming. Please no, and while you're at it I'd rather you stop pouring garbage into my father in law.
  - smt88 5y ago
    I don't know where all of that came from. My point is just that there's no proof Musk is a better CEO/visionary than thousands of other business leaders. You seem to have constructed a lot of other points that I was not commenting on at all. I agree that many of businesses survive only because of subsidies and that "free speech" does not mean that private entities cannot censor themselves.
    - cduzz 5y ago
      Yes... sorry to imply any particular viewpoint on your part. Musk's particular talent, in my view, is his ability to manage exponential growth where there's an extremely narrow set of possibly successful outcomes given a set of constraints. Maybe he sees a way to get twitter back to exponential growth? I don't. I appreciate your nuance, patience, and civility.
    - parineum 5y ago
      > My point is just that there's no proof Musk is a better CEO/visionary than thousands of other business leaders. The objective measure of a business leader's success seems pretty obviously the value of their businesses, is it not?
      - smt88 5y ago
        No. Leaders are a small factor in the success of a business. Other, bigger factors usually include: - luck/timing - investor enthusiasm (longer runway) - regulatory environment - early hires - later hires etc.
        parineum 5y ago
        Ok. Do we just dismiss all business success then? Is there no way to understand the effectiveness of business men? Like I said, the objective of business is to make money. One guy made more money than anyone else. There's also a lot of luck in sports but the team with the most wins at the end of the season is the best team in the regular season.
dmix 5y ago
> he simply needs to be a signal, a beacon or lighthouse to others who know they are capable of innovating There's nothing wrong with that. It's immensely valuable to society to be able to inspire, attract, and organize talent.

by loceng 5y ago

Spooky23 5y ago

The obvious question is, “What problem is he seeking to solve?”

smt88 5y ago

SpaceX seems like a success. Starlink probably will be, too. Tesla survived because of government subsidies and a neverending deluge of hype from Musk. Boring Company is utter nonsense and a huge failure. That track record seems... pretty random. Maybe Musk was an important factor, maybe his engineering and marketing teams were, maybe luck was the most important thing.

cduzz 5y ago
Regarding tesla, lots of companies survive entirely because of Government Subsidies. Resource extraction from public lands, no bid cost + contracts for defense department projects, last mile monopolies for cable companies. You going to then argue "but we'd have it all better if there were no meddling government!" ? There are plenty of places that have no government and they seem pretty miserable. People (ideally) select other people every interval of time to make important decisions (aka "government"); sometimes those decisions adversely affect some people and help others disproportionately (your job is cutting down trees and 99% of the trees are gone? Well, you may lose your job before cutting down that last 1% because the trees have value as trees instead of lumber; sorry them's the breaks). Life is hard and full of difficult choices. There are winners and losers. It's better for everyone to make decisions by discussion and consensus rather than violence. But free speech is "will the government arrest/fine/murder you for what you say (or don't say)" not "do I have to listen to you blather on when I'd rather not". There's tremendous nuance to "free speech". If I'm a cake maker and you ask me to make a cake saying "Fuck Jewish Space Lasers!" can I say no I'd rather not? I'm not sure. Maybe I've got terms of service already, maybe I'm just a harried cake maker trying to be civil and a good person and I'd rather not be an asshole even by proxy. You could probably switch the message to "Happy anniversary Steve and Paul!" and offend some other set of people. We seem to live in a society where some set of people just want to be rude and uncivil and force us all to watch like we're in a clockwork orange needing programming. Please no, and while you're at it I'd rather you stop pouring garbage into my father in law.
- smt88 5y ago
  I don't know where all of that came from. My point is just that there's no proof Musk is a better CEO/visionary than thousands of other business leaders. You seem to have constructed a lot of other points that I was not commenting on at all. I agree that many of businesses survive only because of subsidies and that "free speech" does not mean that private entities cannot censor themselves.
  - cduzz 5y ago
    Yes... sorry to imply any particular viewpoint on your part. Musk's particular talent, in my view, is his ability to manage exponential growth where there's an extremely narrow set of possibly successful outcomes given a set of constraints. Maybe he sees a way to get twitter back to exponential growth? I don't. I appreciate your nuance, patience, and civility.
  - parineum 5y ago
    > My point is just that there's no proof Musk is a better CEO/visionary than thousands of other business leaders. The objective measure of a business leader's success seems pretty obviously the value of their businesses, is it not?
    - smt88 5y ago
      No. Leaders are a small factor in the success of a business. Other, bigger factors usually include: - luck/timing - investor enthusiasm (longer runway) - regulatory environment - early hires - later hires etc.
      - parineum 5y ago
        Ok. Do we just dismiss all business success then? Is there no way to understand the effectiveness of business men? Like I said, the objective of business is to make money. One guy made more money than anyone else. There's also a lot of luck in sports but the team with the most wins at the end of the season is the best team in the regular season.

dmix 5y ago

> he simply needs to be a signal, a beacon or lighthouse to others who know they are capable of innovating There's nothing wrong with that. It's immensely valuable to society to be able to inspire, attract, and organize talent.