14 ms·

You know that Elon's companies actually build electric cars and rockets that go to space, right?

by darawk 4y ago

pigeonhole123 4y ago
You know Enron did actually trade energy right?
jackblemming 4y ago
He's smart enough to say "self driving cars are coming soon" or "neural link will be done in five years" or the millions of other things he's said are right around the corner. The other grifters weren't as smart.
- extheat 4y ago
  All companies should seek to be ambitious. It’s one thing to have a tangible product in development be hyped and other to be selling literal vaporware without the internet of delivering or lying about possessions.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >It’s one thing to have a tangible product in development be hyped and other to be selling literal vaporware And which is "Full Self Driving"? One man's very early stage "tangible product" is another's "vapourware".
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Elon Musk may not be a sympathetic Human being, but he certainly isn't a grifter. What amazes me the most is that he is able to get project management in place that works. Somehow most (or all) of his companies get shit done, and it is indeed some amazingly complex shit. That may be his super power, beyond having been lucky with his first investments giving him the billions for the next endeavors.
  - foobiekr 4y ago
    Selling, not just promising, people FSD for years when it was and is no where in sight isn’t a grift?
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      He said lots of crazy things would happen. Most of them have. A grifter promises things, none of which have ever happened.
      - antonvs 4y ago
        I don't think most of them have, in fact most of them haven't. Hyperloop, Cybertruck, inter-city rocket flights, Mars colony - these are ideas that haven't or won't succeed because they're ridiculously impractical and/or pointless, and seem to be more about projecting a futuristic image than anything else. (The alternative explanation is that he's a lot dumber than he seems.) But, he throws ideas at the wall and some of them work out. It's a similar thing venture capital companies do with their startup portfolios, but mixed in with a lot more futuristic PR fluff ideas.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        If he listened to you he'd probably get extremely depressed really quickly, despite all the success he did undoubtedly have!
        antonvs 4y ago
        He'd only get depressed if he actually believed in those ideas, as opposed to just using them for image-building purposes. For the inter-city rocket flight one in particular, it's hard to believe he could seriously think that's practical, and certainly if he ran the idea past any experts at his companies they'd be able to tell him why it's not. If you look at how he uses Twitter and other public ways to pump up stock prices, it seems likely that he figured out early on that there's lots of money in convincing people that the future is just around the corner and that you should buy shares in his companies to get in on the action. He's the wealthiest-on-paper person in the world not because of the value produced by his companies, but because of the future value he's convinced people that his companies have.
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  Elon has things to show for these claims. His cars do self-drive, though not at an average human level yet. But if you've been following the progress, he is quickly approaching that point. Same with neuralink, it's not just words.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Musk bought into both of those, however much he would like it forgotten. The only thing he started himself that has worked out so far is SpaceX. Yet the whole Martian colony line is 100% grift. Starlink might yet flop, as it needs more subscribers than it probably can support. SpaceX has been very good at eliciting government handouts. Starship will absolutely not be able to turn around in less than 30 days until after they figure out a tile scheme different enough from NASA's, if ever. It is very far from certain the chopsticks catching scheme will work. Each time a Superheavy detonates on the launchpad (which will happen) will set them back months, because it will wipe out the whole "stage 0" and tank farm.
    - rlt 4y ago
      Typical anti-Musk talking points. > Musk bought into both of those Very early on. And grew, at least Tesla, many orders of magnitude from early prototype to mass production. > SpaceX has been very good at eliciting government handouts Contracts, not handouts. Which they have delivered on in spades. Starship and Starlink are still early, yes. But Falcon 9 has brought launch costs down considerably, is putting more mass to orbit than the rest of the world combined, and is currently the only way the United States can get astronauts into orbit.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        You correctly note that of all Musk initiatives, only SpaceX has shown partial success, and that only via direct government subsidy. You correctly do not assert that Martian colonization or suborbital passenger or freight service are better than grift even with a 100% Starship success. You correctly do not assert that any other Musk initiative, including hyperloop, domestic robots, self-driving cars, electric trucks, are anything other than grift.
nurettin 4y ago
Elon musk is pretty similar if you take a good hard look. He was an unsuccessful manager at a software company which got acquired. SpaceX is a successful company considering all it went through. It was founded on the basis of a manned carrier aircraft pushing the rocket and do a suborbital split. (they did this for years) Then they got a lot of investment and gave up on the original premise, instead going for controlled takeoff and landing. That failed spectacularly many times, but money kept pouring in. And now we have privatized satellite launches and Elon musk takes all the credit for it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  How is an aerospace company that did 31 launches last year, including some manned ones, pretty similar to a pharmaceutical company with an entirely pre-clinical portfolio of unproven "cures" invented by and licensed from a magician embroiled in a litany of fraud and other crimes?
  - nurettin 4y ago
    I do not doubt the success of spacex, but Elon Musk is not the visionary genius people take him to be. His main skillset is luck and persistence. I'm sure you've heard of the boring company which would revolutionize traffic except it did not and never will. He says "I have this idea make it work". This is the limit of his capability. In that way he's pretty similar to Elizabeth Holmes, except he isn't playing with the health of individuals for monetary gain.
    - hawk_ 4y ago
      Isn't success x% inspiration and [significantly larger than x]% perspiration? How does it matter if he achieves it through persistence. He is consistently able to build teams that deliver.
      - 4y ago
Hypocritelefty 4y ago
itsoktocry 4y ago
>You know that Elon's companies actually build electric cars and rockets that go to space, right? It wasn't this way 10 years ago, but the list of things his companies are purported to do is now quite a bit longer than what they actually do.
- darawk 4y ago
  Sure. But they do actually do very impressive things. Generally people we write off as "grifters" do not actually produce anything of value. And 10 years ago, the list of things they were merely purported to do includes many of the things that today they actually do. E.g. manufacturing EVs at scale, reusing rockets, etc.

You know that Elon's companies actually build electric cars and rockets that go to space, right?

by darawk 4y ago

You know that Elon's companies actually build electric cars and rockets that go to space, right?

pigeonhole123 4y ago

You know Enron did actually trade energy right?

jackblemming 4y ago

He's smart enough to say "self driving cars are coming soon" or "neural link will be done in five years" or the millions of other things he's said are right around the corner. The other grifters weren't as smart.

extheat 4y ago
All companies should seek to be ambitious. It’s one thing to have a tangible product in development be hyped and other to be selling literal vaporware without the internet of delivering or lying about possessions.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >It’s one thing to have a tangible product in development be hyped and other to be selling literal vaporware And which is "Full Self Driving"? One man's very early stage "tangible product" is another's "vapourware".
bayesian_horse 4y ago
Elon Musk may not be a sympathetic Human being, but he certainly isn't a grifter. What amazes me the most is that he is able to get project management in place that works. Somehow most (or all) of his companies get shit done, and it is indeed some amazingly complex shit. That may be his super power, beyond having been lucky with his first investments giving him the billions for the next endeavors.
- foobiekr 4y ago
  Selling, not just promising, people FSD for years when it was and is no where in sight isn’t a grift?
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    He said lots of crazy things would happen. Most of them have. A grifter promises things, none of which have ever happened.
    - antonvs 4y ago
      I don't think most of them have, in fact most of them haven't. Hyperloop, Cybertruck, inter-city rocket flights, Mars colony - these are ideas that haven't or won't succeed because they're ridiculously impractical and/or pointless, and seem to be more about projecting a futuristic image than anything else. (The alternative explanation is that he's a lot dumber than he seems.) But, he throws ideas at the wall and some of them work out. It's a similar thing venture capital companies do with their startup portfolios, but mixed in with a lot more futuristic PR fluff ideas.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        If he listened to you he'd probably get extremely depressed really quickly, despite all the success he did undoubtedly have!
        antonvs 4y ago
        He'd only get depressed if he actually believed in those ideas, as opposed to just using them for image-building purposes. For the inter-city rocket flight one in particular, it's hard to believe he could seriously think that's practical, and certainly if he ran the idea past any experts at his companies they'd be able to tell him why it's not. If you look at how he uses Twitter and other public ways to pump up stock prices, it seems likely that he figured out early on that there's lots of money in convincing people that the future is just around the corner and that you should buy shares in his companies to get in on the action. He's the wealthiest-on-paper person in the world not because of the value produced by his companies, but because of the future value he's convinced people that his companies have.
bufferoverflow 4y ago
Elon has things to show for these claims. His cars do self-drive, though not at an average human level yet. But if you've been following the progress, he is quickly approaching that point. Same with neuralink, it's not just words.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Musk bought into both of those, however much he would like it forgotten. The only thing he started himself that has worked out so far is SpaceX. Yet the whole Martian colony line is 100% grift. Starlink might yet flop, as it needs more subscribers than it probably can support. SpaceX has been very good at eliciting government handouts. Starship will absolutely not be able to turn around in less than 30 days until after they figure out a tile scheme different enough from NASA's, if ever. It is very far from certain the chopsticks catching scheme will work. Each time a Superheavy detonates on the launchpad (which will happen) will set them back months, because it will wipe out the whole "stage 0" and tank farm.
  - rlt 4y ago
    Typical anti-Musk talking points. > Musk bought into both of those Very early on. And grew, at least Tesla, many orders of magnitude from early prototype to mass production. > SpaceX has been very good at eliciting government handouts Contracts, not handouts. Which they have delivered on in spades. Starship and Starlink are still early, yes. But Falcon 9 has brought launch costs down considerably, is putting more mass to orbit than the rest of the world combined, and is currently the only way the United States can get astronauts into orbit.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      You correctly note that of all Musk initiatives, only SpaceX has shown partial success, and that only via direct government subsidy. You correctly do not assert that Martian colonization or suborbital passenger or freight service are better than grift even with a 100% Starship success. You correctly do not assert that any other Musk initiative, including hyperloop, domestic robots, self-driving cars, electric trucks, are anything other than grift.

nurettin 4y ago

Elon musk is pretty similar if you take a good hard look. He was an unsuccessful manager at a software company which got acquired. SpaceX is a successful company considering all it went through. It was founded on the basis of a manned carrier aircraft pushing the rocket and do a suborbital split. (they did this for years) Then they got a lot of investment and gave up on the original premise, instead going for controlled takeoff and landing. That failed spectacularly many times, but money kept pouring in. And now we have privatized satellite launches and Elon musk takes all the credit for it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bayesian_horse 4y ago
How is an aerospace company that did 31 launches last year, including some manned ones, pretty similar to a pharmaceutical company with an entirely pre-clinical portfolio of unproven "cures" invented by and licensed from a magician embroiled in a litany of fraud and other crimes?
- nurettin 4y ago
  I do not doubt the success of spacex, but Elon Musk is not the visionary genius people take him to be. His main skillset is luck and persistence. I'm sure you've heard of the boring company which would revolutionize traffic except it did not and never will. He says "I have this idea make it work". This is the limit of his capability. In that way he's pretty similar to Elizabeth Holmes, except he isn't playing with the health of individuals for monetary gain.
  - hawk_ 4y ago
    Isn't success x% inspiration and [significantly larger than x]% perspiration? How does it matter if he achieves it through persistence. He is consistently able to build teams that deliver.
    - 4y ago

Hypocritelefty 4y ago

itsoktocry 4y ago

>You know that Elon's companies actually build electric cars and rockets that go to space, right? It wasn't this way 10 years ago, but the list of things his companies are purported to do is now quite a bit longer than what they actually do.

darawk 4y ago
Sure. But they do actually do very impressive things. Generally people we write off as "grifters" do not actually produce anything of value. And 10 years ago, the list of things they were merely purported to do includes many of the things that today they actually do. E.g. manufacturing EVs at scale, reusing rockets, etc.