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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

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.

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.