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> Just as with other Musk companies, the first version isn't that amazing and people fall over themselves laughting declaring how it will never work and never b

> Just as with other Musk companies, the first version isn't that amazing and people fall over themselves laughting declaring how it will never work and never be practical and how they will never manage to produce them in real numbers. It's not clear to me what you are saying here. Is it that Musk is clarivoyant, and always selects for lines of business where exponential progress is certain to be made incrementally, or is it that his involvement guarantees that incremental progress will always be made? As a follow-up to the former: do you think that's the case for Twitter? As a follow-up to the latter: for how many companies do you believe Musk can simultaneously ensure success?

bombcar 4y ago
Arguably the key would be picking industries ripe for disruption if you’re willing to look stupid for awhile. Those would be high-capital low output in general, as low capital or high output have probably already tried many things. If there’s a Muskette strength it would be identifying those.
kentlyons 4y ago
To throw in my 2c (having worked at Tesla before) - I don't think it is either of these directly. Clearly no one is clairvoyant, however Elon is not one to take the status quo as an answer (eg his first principles mantra). And making a ton of incremental improvements over and over (especially in industries that tend to be risk averse to any changes) can result in huge improvements over time. And it's not like he is directly involved with those improvements. But there is a culture of no BS and fix things if you see it broken, get rid of as much bureaucracy as possible, etc. So if he can instill those cultural values he doesn't need to be directly involved. And if something goes wrong, it can also change on a dime, and go a different direction.
- nwiswell 4y ago
  I don't think there's much argument that Tesla and SpaceX have effective corporate cultures, but that doesn't strike me as unique or a guarantee of enterprise success on its own. Nor is "fix broken things" all that new -- that was sort of the basis of the the Toyota Production System / "Lean" revolution in manufacturing that Tesla itself adapted. My read of GP's comment is that even without any concrete evidence to support a prediction of success (and indeed possibly the opposite), for some reason Musk's involvement alone is enough to be confident that the Boring Company will be relevant in 5-10 years. It's hard for me to understand his logic without writing it off as personality cult stuff.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    You don’t think being backed by the world’s richest man, who is a also serially successful entrepreneur, and also an engineer, might make a venture more likely to succeed?
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Its not not about what is 'new'. Its about what is consistently effective. > that was sort of the basis of the the Toyota Production System / "Lean" revolution in manufacturing that Tesla itself adapted. Yes but Toyota then stuck around for to long on one technology. > Musk's involvement alone is enough to be confident that the Boring Company will be relevant in 5-10 years. It's hard for me to understand his logic without writing it off as personality cult stuff. That seems like a strange opinion. If somebody us successful in other conservative high capital business then its a personality cult to suggest that this might be possible again. And the reason are partly the same. Electrification. So its not even a totally different unique field. And its not just Musk. I just generally think its a good idea to remove complexity from the tunnel and put it into the pod. One of the big problems with subways is limited numbers and terrible maintenance. You can piggyback of the EV industry.
panick21_ 4y ago
Both. By selecting conservative industries high capital intensive industries its very likely that incremental improvements can be made. Large companies with large capital investment try to leverage those as long as they can. Musk build his company with consistent improvement as the core strategy. > As a follow-up to the former: do you think that's the case for Twitter? I have no idea. Its such a different thing. I don't think its a great use of his time. > As a follow-up to the latter: for how many companies do you believe Musk can simultaneously ensure success? I don't think he can ensure it, but it makes it much likely. But I would say the number is not static. It depends on the problems that exist within the companies. In 2017 during Model 3 ramp it was likely 1 of them, but lucky at that point SpaceX had nailed the most fundamental things in terms of reuse and the company faced on lethal issues. He he access to lots of great people that he at least partly trust to put into these positions. So that helps, and he pretty good at recruiting young talent. So I don't really know.

bombcar 4y ago

Arguably the key would be picking industries ripe for disruption if you’re willing to look stupid for awhile. Those would be high-capital low output in general, as low capital or high output have probably already tried many things. If there’s a Muskette strength it would be identifying those.

kentlyons 4y ago

To throw in my 2c (having worked at Tesla before) - I don't think it is either of these directly. Clearly no one is clairvoyant, however Elon is not one to take the status quo as an answer (eg his first principles mantra). And making a ton of incremental improvements over and over (especially in industries that tend to be risk averse to any changes) can result in huge improvements over time. And it's not like he is directly involved with those improvements. But there is a culture of no BS and fix things if you see it broken, get rid of as much bureaucracy as possible, etc. So if he can instill those cultural values he doesn't need to be directly involved. And if something goes wrong, it can also change on a dime, and go a different direction.

nwiswell 4y ago
I don't think there's much argument that Tesla and SpaceX have effective corporate cultures, but that doesn't strike me as unique or a guarantee of enterprise success on its own. Nor is "fix broken things" all that new -- that was sort of the basis of the the Toyota Production System / "Lean" revolution in manufacturing that Tesla itself adapted. My read of GP's comment is that even without any concrete evidence to support a prediction of success (and indeed possibly the opposite), for some reason Musk's involvement alone is enough to be confident that the Boring Company will be relevant in 5-10 years. It's hard for me to understand his logic without writing it off as personality cult stuff.
- FredPret 4y ago
  You don’t think being backed by the world’s richest man, who is a also serially successful entrepreneur, and also an engineer, might make a venture more likely to succeed?
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Its not not about what is 'new'. Its about what is consistently effective. > that was sort of the basis of the the Toyota Production System / "Lean" revolution in manufacturing that Tesla itself adapted. Yes but Toyota then stuck around for to long on one technology. > Musk's involvement alone is enough to be confident that the Boring Company will be relevant in 5-10 years. It's hard for me to understand his logic without writing it off as personality cult stuff. That seems like a strange opinion. If somebody us successful in other conservative high capital business then its a personality cult to suggest that this might be possible again. And the reason are partly the same. Electrification. So its not even a totally different unique field. And its not just Musk. I just generally think its a good idea to remove complexity from the tunnel and put it into the pod. One of the big problems with subways is limited numbers and terrible maintenance. You can piggyback of the EV industry.

panick21_ 4y ago

Both. By selecting conservative industries high capital intensive industries its very likely that incremental improvements can be made. Large companies with large capital investment try to leverage those as long as they can. Musk build his company with consistent improvement as the core strategy. > As a follow-up to the former: do you think that's the case for Twitter? I have no idea. Its such a different thing. I don't think its a great use of his time. > As a follow-up to the latter: for how many companies do you believe Musk can simultaneously ensure success? I don't think he can ensure it, but it makes it much likely. But I would say the number is not static. It depends on the problems that exist within the companies. In 2017 during Model 3 ramp it was likely 1 of them, but lucky at that point SpaceX had nailed the most fundamental things in terms of reuse and the company faced on lethal issues. He he access to lots of great people that he at least partly trust to put into these positions. So that helps, and he pretty good at recruiting young talent. So I don't really know.