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Why do people think they have a better idea of his abilities and contributions than those who know him personally? John Carmack: "Elon is definitely an enginee

by memish 4y ago

Why do people think they have a better idea of his abilities and contributions than those who know him personally? John Carmack: "Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so." Here's Kevin Watson, who developed the avionics for Falcon 9 and Dragon and previously managed the Advanced Computer Systems and Technologies Group within the Autonomous Systems Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory: "Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction. He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy. He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years." Garrett Reisman, engineer and former NASA astronaut: "What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does."

azemetre 4y ago
Wouldn't it be better to ask people who have quit Elon's ventures rather than people that rely on him for employment or those that rely on his services? Seems heavily biased.
- spiffytech 4y ago
  Is John Carmack reliant on Elon? He works for Facebook on Oculus, and I'm not turning up any search results of either him or Armadillo Aerospace doing business with Elon (and Armadillo has been in "hibernation" since 2013).
  - azemetre 4y ago
    Ah I didn't see Carmack in the commit when it was posted.
belter 4y ago
If you are curious to see if he knows what he is talking about or not, you can hear it directly from him instead of from employees: "Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI | Lex Fridman": https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA My take after hearing the interview? Alex Fridman knows what is talking about, Elon Musk no.
teachrdan 4y ago
> Why do people think they have a better idea of his abilities than those who work with him? It appears your argument is, "Elon is a great engineer, therefore he can't be messing around with his Twitter acquisition deal." Your mistake is assuming that a great thinker cannot be mistaken, even outside his domain. A counterexample is the scientist who pioneered PCR. Kary Mullis won a Nobel Prize for his efforts! And yet he also believes in astrology and that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. There's no reason to think that Elon Musk (who appears in no danger of winning a Nobel Prize) does not have his own goofy thoughts and actions, one of which appears to be making an insincere bid to buy Twitter just to make himself look big while weakening them. Time will tell whether that's the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Views_on_HIV/AIDS_and_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Views_on_HIV/AIDS_...
- nailer 4y ago
  > It appears your argument is, "Elon is a great engineer, therefore he can't be messing around with his Twitter acquisition deal." No. His argument was a response to: >>> "OTOH, its patently obvious that he isn't some kind of genius, more like a gambler who managed a winning streak and somehow thinks its because they have a lucky charm." And was a very robust response at that.
  - teachrdan 4y ago
    If he's such a great genius, why is he devoting so much energy to trolling Twitter? Either he's not such a genius, or he is and he's squandering his talents.
    - nailer 4y ago
      Because trolling authoritarians is a noble cause.
    - _Tev 4y ago
      Tbh at least in space community everyone seems to think he is squandering his talents when spending any time at all on Twitter (let alone buying it).
StillBored 4y ago
I'm not sure any of those prove he is a genius (SD>>4 say). Why does every successful person have to be a super intelligent person? None of the quotes, the interviews I've heard, etc put beyond what I would expect of a reasonably intelligent engineer. Engineering/Science/Math attract "geeks" sometimes with frightening Jeopardy levels of breadth in general science/engineering/etc fields. And given all the batsh*t crazy, conjecture, etc one hears from him, i'm inclined to believe its less unstable genius, more lucky nerd. That doesn't mean he isn't smart/driven/etc, it just means he isn't this big brain who can predict the future and knows the secret formula to living on mars. In some ways the successes are logical steps. AKA, the tesla manufacturing problems, translate to knowing how to avoid similar issues when building rockets. Most of what has been accomplished looks like well applied engineering, which is more about sweat than genius. So from the outside it looks more like a mix of gambling + luck + solid management skills + ability to avoid technical dead ends. Does that make him a genius, or just someone with tenacity? Given the failures and close calls, I'm included to believe its less genius, more tenacity and just enough luck. Both tesla and space-X have been one bad day away from not existing. The fact that they are still around is luck as much as skill.
- nouveaux 4y ago
  There's a lot of things you can say about Elon like crazy, blinded by money and power, hubris, etc. Lucky? If you start one billion dollar company, sure. The man built up Paypal, Space X and Tesla. The jury is still out on Boring Company but it's still drilling in Las Vegas. I'm sure he got lucky with Paypal but you can't luck out this many times. The guy clearly knows how to build billion dollar businesses.
CPLX 4y ago
What's even more remarkable is that there's basically no tradition of rich and powerful people in business slapping each other on the back and praising each other in public, giving each other awards, going to the same parties, and doing favors for each other. Which makes these notable people praising the richest man in the world really stand out as obviously authentic.
misiti3780 4y ago
it's super simple, they're jealous.
mrtranscendence 4y ago
Eh. He sounds like someone who has a breadth of interests, but that doesn't necessarily make him a genius. Obviously you'll find complimentary statements regarding the world's richest man, and if he's a fairly nerdy one such compliments will often take the form of "oh he's so smart". Maybe he is super smart. But it's not clear to me how someone with a deep knowledge of the matter could've said, in 2015, that 2018 would bring cars with "full self driving", nor how he could have made similar dead wrong forecasts in the years following. At the very least he's lucky with respect to how he's never faced significant consequences for his great number of mistakes, boneheaded statements, and arguably criminal behavior.

by memish 4y ago

azemetre 4y ago

Wouldn't it be better to ask people who have quit Elon's ventures rather than people that rely on him for employment or those that rely on his services? Seems heavily biased.

spiffytech 4y ago
Is John Carmack reliant on Elon? He works for Facebook on Oculus, and I'm not turning up any search results of either him or Armadillo Aerospace doing business with Elon (and Armadillo has been in "hibernation" since 2013).
- azemetre 4y ago
  Ah I didn't see Carmack in the commit when it was posted.

belter 4y ago

If you are curious to see if he knows what he is talking about or not, you can hear it directly from him instead of from employees: "Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI | Lex Fridman": https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA My take after hearing the interview? Alex Fridman knows what is talking about, Elon Musk no.

teachrdan 4y ago

> Why do people think they have a better idea of his abilities than those who work with him? It appears your argument is, "Elon is a great engineer, therefore he can't be messing around with his Twitter acquisition deal." Your mistake is assuming that a great thinker cannot be mistaken, even outside his domain. A counterexample is the scientist who pioneered PCR. Kary Mullis won a Nobel Prize for his efforts! And yet he also believes in astrology and that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. There's no reason to think that Elon Musk (who appears in no danger of winning a Nobel Prize) does not have his own goofy thoughts and actions, one of which appears to be making an insincere bid to buy Twitter just to make himself look big while weakening them. Time will tell whether that's the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Views_on_HIV/AIDS_and_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Views_on_HIV/AIDS_...

nailer 4y ago
> It appears your argument is, "Elon is a great engineer, therefore he can't be messing around with his Twitter acquisition deal." No. His argument was a response to: >>> "OTOH, its patently obvious that he isn't some kind of genius, more like a gambler who managed a winning streak and somehow thinks its because they have a lucky charm." And was a very robust response at that.
- teachrdan 4y ago
  If he's such a great genius, why is he devoting so much energy to trolling Twitter? Either he's not such a genius, or he is and he's squandering his talents.
  - nailer 4y ago
    Because trolling authoritarians is a noble cause.
  - _Tev 4y ago
    Tbh at least in space community everyone seems to think he is squandering his talents when spending any time at all on Twitter (let alone buying it).

StillBored 4y ago

I'm not sure any of those prove he is a genius (SD>>4 say). Why does every successful person have to be a super intelligent person? None of the quotes, the interviews I've heard, etc put beyond what I would expect of a reasonably intelligent engineer. Engineering/Science/Math attract "geeks" sometimes with frightening Jeopardy levels of breadth in general science/engineering/etc fields. And given all the batsh*t crazy, conjecture, etc one hears from him, i'm inclined to believe its less unstable genius, more lucky nerd. That doesn't mean he isn't smart/driven/etc, it just means he isn't this big brain who can predict the future and knows the secret formula to living on mars. In some ways the successes are logical steps. AKA, the tesla manufacturing problems, translate to knowing how to avoid similar issues when building rockets. Most of what has been accomplished looks like well applied engineering, which is more about sweat than genius. So from the outside it looks more like a mix of gambling + luck + solid management skills + ability to avoid technical dead ends. Does that make him a genius, or just someone with tenacity? Given the failures and close calls, I'm included to believe its less genius, more tenacity and just enough luck. Both tesla and space-X have been one bad day away from not existing. The fact that they are still around is luck as much as skill.

nouveaux 4y ago
There's a lot of things you can say about Elon like crazy, blinded by money and power, hubris, etc. Lucky? If you start one billion dollar company, sure. The man built up Paypal, Space X and Tesla. The jury is still out on Boring Company but it's still drilling in Las Vegas. I'm sure he got lucky with Paypal but you can't luck out this many times. The guy clearly knows how to build billion dollar businesses.

CPLX 4y ago

What's even more remarkable is that there's basically no tradition of rich and powerful people in business slapping each other on the back and praising each other in public, giving each other awards, going to the same parties, and doing favors for each other. Which makes these notable people praising the richest man in the world really stand out as obviously authentic.

misiti3780 4y ago

it's super simple, they're jealous.

mrtranscendence 4y ago

Eh. He sounds like someone who has a breadth of interests, but that doesn't necessarily make him a genius. Obviously you'll find complimentary statements regarding the world's richest man, and if he's a fairly nerdy one such compliments will often take the form of "oh he's so smart". Maybe he is super smart. But it's not clear to me how someone with a deep knowledge of the matter could've said, in 2015, that 2018 would bring cars with "full self driving", nor how he could have made similar dead wrong forecasts in the years following. At the very least he's lucky with respect to how he's never faced significant consequences for his great number of mistakes, boneheaded statements, and arguably criminal behavior.