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> “You know how they tell you to "visualise success" because you need to know what it looks like to aim for it? Along those lines I was visualising what it wou

> “You know how they tell you to "visualise success" because you need to know what it looks like to aim for it? Along those lines I was visualising what it would look like if someone like Elon Musk was on YouTube showing off some sort of future fusion reactor that's "not just a piece of lab equipment"” The money went to his head, he’s not the innovator he was, now he’s just a billionaire that got bored with Mars and wants to own social media instead.

wpietri 4y ago
I do wonder how much of an innovator he actually is on his own. He's known for his time at Paypal, but he was only there for 6 months, during which his big effort was to switch their Unix servers to Windows NT. He bought his way into Tesla. And speaking as somebody who used to work at Twitter in anti-abuse engineering, I can confidently say that he displays a very poor understanding of the problems he's in theory buying Twitter to solve. And that's before we even get to his terribly handled attempt to buy the company, which could literally cost him billions to get out of, or billions more if he's forced to buy and run the company.
- philwelch 4y ago
  He bought his way into Tesla very early on, oversaw the design of the first Roadster, and took over as CEO before the first Roadster launched. He’s also been at SpaceX from the start and has apparently been involved at a technical level from the start.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    I've had some bosses/clients that were "involved at a technical level". Let's just say that their being "involved" in a successful project is not a perfect indicator that they are particularly skilled innovators. For example, consider Steve Jobs. He was hugely involved, but not particularly technical. He was very strong at marketing, and also very strong at understanding certain kinds of user need and then berating people until he got something that met his high standards.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Correct: he is not. All the success he has had comes from lots of bucks to start from, and lucky hires. You can tell from all his obvious duds, and the idiotic things he says whenever he goes off-script. Gwynne Shotwell probably deserves the credit for SpaceX, and probably all of that for her personnel actions.
  - baq 4y ago
    Gwynne absolutely is the unsung hero. (Though in truth I think more spacex fans know about her importance than it would seem. Not sure about the outside world.)
  - nickserv 4y ago
    As someone having hired quite a few people over the years, I can say without a doubt that there are no lucky hires. If you know how to hire well, and have tons of money, it's difficult to do badly.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Don't dislocate anything patting yourself on the back. Overwhelmingly more of success is luck than anybody involved likes to think.
  - pyinstallwoes 4y ago
    Oh yeah totally? Just luck! Wow, what a lucky man right? Probabilistically nearly impossible but hey? Statistically it’s still possible as a fluke. Super rational thinking that’s applicable to increasingly well understood mental modes of reality. Bravo!
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      Probabilistically it's not that implausible. Musk has what, one successful company he founded himself - SpaceX? The hyperloop is flop, the boring company is a flop too, so is SolarCity, and the sucessful one came with a lot of exceptionally great hires. I'd say empirically his skill at hiring competent people that are willing to work hard is higher than average, while his engineering skills don't seem to be particularly special. 1 out of 4 seems solidly probable to me.
- robocat 4y ago
  Jim Keller talks about his impression working with Elon - skip to 1:20:50 of this (effing amazing) interview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA Edit: Also Jim talks about Elon’s engineering skills at 50 minutes into this interview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1TmuJSbms9c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1TmuJSbms9c Disclaimer: I’m not an Elon fan at all.
  - RaiausderDose 4y ago
    thx, this interview seems great. Jim is a cool dude.
- xani_ 4y ago
  Wasn't he fired from paypal for incompetence and got millions basically "coz he was there early and got the stock" ?
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Yes, he was definitely fired after a short stint. Stories on why don't totally line up for me, but incompetence is one of the explanations, and I feel like it's pretty hard to get fired from a CEO spot that quickly.

wpietri 4y ago

I do wonder how much of an innovator he actually is on his own. He's known for his time at Paypal, but he was only there for 6 months, during which his big effort was to switch their Unix servers to Windows NT. He bought his way into Tesla. And speaking as somebody who used to work at Twitter in anti-abuse engineering, I can confidently say that he displays a very poor understanding of the problems he's in theory buying Twitter to solve. And that's before we even get to his terribly handled attempt to buy the company, which could literally cost him billions to get out of, or billions more if he's forced to buy and run the company.

philwelch 4y ago
He bought his way into Tesla very early on, oversaw the design of the first Roadster, and took over as CEO before the first Roadster launched. He’s also been at SpaceX from the start and has apparently been involved at a technical level from the start.
- wpietri 4y ago
  I've had some bosses/clients that were "involved at a technical level". Let's just say that their being "involved" in a successful project is not a perfect indicator that they are particularly skilled innovators. For example, consider Steve Jobs. He was hugely involved, but not particularly technical. He was very strong at marketing, and also very strong at understanding certain kinds of user need and then berating people until he got something that met his high standards.
ncmncm 4y ago
Correct: he is not. All the success he has had comes from lots of bucks to start from, and lucky hires. You can tell from all his obvious duds, and the idiotic things he says whenever he goes off-script. Gwynne Shotwell probably deserves the credit for SpaceX, and probably all of that for her personnel actions.
- baq 4y ago
  Gwynne absolutely is the unsung hero. (Though in truth I think more spacex fans know about her importance than it would seem. Not sure about the outside world.)
- nickserv 4y ago
  As someone having hired quite a few people over the years, I can say without a doubt that there are no lucky hires. If you know how to hire well, and have tons of money, it's difficult to do badly.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Don't dislocate anything patting yourself on the back. Overwhelmingly more of success is luck than anybody involved likes to think.
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Oh yeah totally? Just luck! Wow, what a lucky man right? Probabilistically nearly impossible but hey? Statistically it’s still possible as a fluke. Super rational thinking that’s applicable to increasingly well understood mental modes of reality. Bravo!
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Probabilistically it's not that implausible. Musk has what, one successful company he founded himself - SpaceX? The hyperloop is flop, the boring company is a flop too, so is SolarCity, and the sucessful one came with a lot of exceptionally great hires. I'd say empirically his skill at hiring competent people that are willing to work hard is higher than average, while his engineering skills don't seem to be particularly special. 1 out of 4 seems solidly probable to me.
robocat 4y ago
Jim Keller talks about his impression working with Elon - skip to 1:20:50 of this (effing amazing) interview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA Edit: Also Jim talks about Elon’s engineering skills at 50 minutes into this interview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1TmuJSbms9c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1TmuJSbms9c Disclaimer: I’m not an Elon fan at all.
- RaiausderDose 4y ago
  thx, this interview seems great. Jim is a cool dude.
xani_ 4y ago
Wasn't he fired from paypal for incompetence and got millions basically "coz he was there early and got the stock" ?
- wpietri 4y ago
  Yes, he was definitely fired after a short stint. Stories on why don't totally line up for me, but incompetence is one of the explanations, and I feel like it's pretty hard to get fired from a CEO spot that quickly.