3 ms·

What "heavy-duty" software did Musk write for a 20 year period? I can't square it with the career section in his Wikipedia bio.

Vecr 4y ago
Rocket flight control? I'm not sure that was 20 years in a row or how much he really does of it, but that's my guess.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  He's the CEO. You think he's writing the flight control software?
dgrin91 4y ago
He made x.com, which was a financial service company that got bought by paypal. THen I think he worked at paypal for a while. Then he did spacex. Then he did tesla. All of those are very engineering heavy and he has been known to get into nitty gritty on all of them.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  > he has been known to get into nitty gritty Is he writing any software at SpaceX or Tesla? I've heard stories here and there of him sitting in an engineering meeting. Zip2 was founded in 1995 -- there are credible claims (from a biography) he wrote software there, and that's all I've found.
- saenns 4y ago
  highly doubt this guy wrote a single line of code at any of those companies
- notacoward 4y ago
  Is there any actual evidence of him "getting into the nitty gritty" at SpaceX or Tesla? Confirmation from people who would have been there to see it? Or just his own claims? I don't think his time doing early web stuff at x.com or PayPal counts as "heavy duty" and it certainly wasn't 20 years.
  - dgrin91 4y ago
    If you ever see him at any talk thats not a pure PR event he tends to go into engineering details. Good series I would recommend from Everyday Astronaut where they get into lots of nitty gritty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ux6B3bvO0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ux6B3bvO0w
    - notacoward 4y ago
      What do you think "PR" is if not doing videos like that? And how do scripted comments about a technical domain that's not programming have anything to do with his actual claim (see OP) to have done "20 years of heavy duty programming"? There's no doubt that he has some kind of smarts, but he claimed something very specific and AFAIK that claim has no basis in fact.
    - justapassenger 4y ago
      I don’t have rocket engineering expertise, but I do have AI. When I see him talk about AI (which he claims to be an expert in), it’s like hearing college freshman, after first 5 classes of ML 101, who read a lot of pop-science blogs about it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
recursv_thnkng 4y ago
There is none. The only thing anyone has referenced is some pre-PayPal code that got scrapped and rewritten in the merger and some games when he was a kid.
- abudabi123 4y ago
  Look for his interviews. He mentions a software his organization wrote and sold, but the buyer didn't know how to fully take advantage of it. Kind of like flying an F22 as a cardboard box down the side of a grassy hill.
  - nkozyra 4y ago
    Can you elaborate? It's a big leap to go from vaguely describing something you read he said to then describing this hypothetical as a metaphorical F22.
tedunangst 4y ago
He forced PayPal to switch to windows. Opinions differ as to the wisdom of that move. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513223
JoeyBananas 4y ago
He worked in the video game industry at one point and wrote some low level code there.
dingosity 4y ago
I can assure you Mr. Musk was not involved in writing code at x.com. Though he was a very decent product-manager-type guy and generally more technical than most PMs. I believe he can understand many issues with code-bases, but he absolutely did not understand why we did things the way we did in the crypto(graphy) code at x.com.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Sounds like you might have some anecdotes to share :-)

Vecr 4y ago

Rocket flight control? I'm not sure that was 20 years in a row or how much he really does of it, but that's my guess.

tomjakubowski 4y ago
He's the CEO. You think he's writing the flight control software?

dgrin91 4y ago

He made x.com, which was a financial service company that got bought by paypal. THen I think he worked at paypal for a while. Then he did spacex. Then he did tesla. All of those are very engineering heavy and he has been known to get into nitty gritty on all of them.

tomjakubowski 4y ago
> he has been known to get into nitty gritty Is he writing any software at SpaceX or Tesla? I've heard stories here and there of him sitting in an engineering meeting. Zip2 was founded in 1995 -- there are credible claims (from a biography) he wrote software there, and that's all I've found.
saenns 4y ago
highly doubt this guy wrote a single line of code at any of those companies
notacoward 4y ago
Is there any actual evidence of him "getting into the nitty gritty" at SpaceX or Tesla? Confirmation from people who would have been there to see it? Or just his own claims? I don't think his time doing early web stuff at x.com or PayPal counts as "heavy duty" and it certainly wasn't 20 years.
- dgrin91 4y ago
  If you ever see him at any talk thats not a pure PR event he tends to go into engineering details. Good series I would recommend from Everyday Astronaut where they get into lots of nitty gritty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ux6B3bvO0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ux6B3bvO0w
  - notacoward 4y ago
    What do you think "PR" is if not doing videos like that? And how do scripted comments about a technical domain that's not programming have anything to do with his actual claim (see OP) to have done "20 years of heavy duty programming"? There's no doubt that he has some kind of smarts, but he claimed something very specific and AFAIK that claim has no basis in fact.
  - justapassenger 4y ago
    I don’t have rocket engineering expertise, but I do have AI. When I see him talk about AI (which he claims to be an expert in), it’s like hearing college freshman, after first 5 classes of ML 101, who read a lot of pop-science blogs about it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

recursv_thnkng 4y ago

There is none. The only thing anyone has referenced is some pre-PayPal code that got scrapped and rewritten in the merger and some games when he was a kid.

abudabi123 4y ago
Look for his interviews. He mentions a software his organization wrote and sold, but the buyer didn't know how to fully take advantage of it. Kind of like flying an F22 as a cardboard box down the side of a grassy hill.
- nkozyra 4y ago
  Can you elaborate? It's a big leap to go from vaguely describing something you read he said to then describing this hypothetical as a metaphorical F22.

tedunangst 4y ago

He forced PayPal to switch to windows. Opinions differ as to the wisdom of that move. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12513223

JoeyBananas 4y ago

He worked in the video game industry at one point and wrote some low level code there.

dingosity 4y ago

I can assure you Mr. Musk was not involved in writing code at x.com. Though he was a very decent product-manager-type guy and generally more technical than most PMs. I believe he can understand many issues with code-bases, but he absolutely did not understand why we did things the way we did in the crypto(graphy) code at x.com.

solarkraft 4y ago
Sounds like you might have some anecdotes to share :-)