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If that's all he is doing - paying smart people and expecting them to work hard - why isn't literally everyone else doing the same?

p1necone 4y ago
It might have something to do with the paying bit.
code_runner 4y ago
My theory is that getting smart people to make twitter vs landing reusable rocket boosters… will yield VERY different levels of passion/interest. Which again is FINE. Personally, I just wanna do cool stuff and have a great work/life balance. I don’t want to (and don’t have the expertise to) land a rocket booster. I guess… not everyone’s problem domains are interesting enough to lure a team like space-x etc. again, I don’t like him, but credit to Elon for at least trying to solve these tough problems. Just admit FSD isn’t a year away!
sillysaurusx 4y ago
I don’t agree with them, but this counter argument doesn’t quite work. In a system with x% chance of success, we’d expect most people to fail for small x. But some few will still succeed multiple times. Throw in that your odds get better the more you’re successful, and it’s classic survivorship bias.
- code_runner 4y ago
  I think it’s not binary one way or the other. Companies don’t have to be profitable to be successful. A charismatic leader + lofty goals (FSD, rockets, flame throwers) and you’ll get a ton of money even if you never turn a profit. Let’s not forget the tunnels I’m Vegas btw. They aren’t all winners.
galangalalgol 4y ago
Because it is hard to trust those you hand your money to and not get in the way by checking in too often. Also, not every passionate engineer should be trusted that much. Being able to spot those that are passionate about what you want done, while simultaneously being both competent and trustworthy is a skill that will make you very wealthy, and almost no one has it consistently. A success or three may show that he is one of those people. Or that he is survivorship bias waiting for a reality check. I don't know how to tell, or I would be quite wealthy as well.
bsder 4y ago
Aerospace had a lot of overqualified, underutilized engineers that were spectacularly easy to tap into with a little bit of extra money and a very interesting project. That does not hold for Twitter. There is no magic clump of overqualified, underutilized people to tap into without throwing LOTS of money around. On top of that, Twitter mostly isn't that interesting.
- cavisne 4y ago
  He could probably make it interesting though. At the moment there is a magic clump of such people, large language model experts from big tech who have left because they got sick of not being able to apply the technology. They are currently floating around in various startups, but we are entering a tough market for VC funding. Twitter can offer hardware, data and a culture of shipping.
iamdbtoo 4y ago
Because success at that scale eventually requires you to exploit some percentage of your employees and most people are not ok with that.
serf 4y ago
> paying smart people and expecting them to work hard - why isn't literally everyone else doing the same? is that a real question that expects an answer , or one of those 'SV-Wisdom from-on-high' sentences? Here's an easy practical answer that will fit 95% of the responses : I don't have the money to hire a lot of experts to execute my ideas, nor do I have the familial or business connections in order to facilitate the loans needed.
- fsdjkflsjfsoij 4y ago
  > I don't have the money to hire a lot of experts to execute my ideas, nor do I have the familial or business connections in order to facilitate the loans needed. There are lots of people that have those things and are still not a tiny fraction as successful. Most people could be given all of those things and they'd quickly waste them all in a spectacular fashion. Often the people that are the loudest on this issue don't even have their own absolutely trivial finances in order.

p1necone 4y ago

It might have something to do with the paying bit.

code_runner 4y ago

My theory is that getting smart people to make twitter vs landing reusable rocket boosters… will yield VERY different levels of passion/interest. Which again is FINE. Personally, I just wanna do cool stuff and have a great work/life balance. I don’t want to (and don’t have the expertise to) land a rocket booster. I guess… not everyone’s problem domains are interesting enough to lure a team like space-x etc. again, I don’t like him, but credit to Elon for at least trying to solve these tough problems. Just admit FSD isn’t a year away!

sillysaurusx 4y ago

I don’t agree with them, but this counter argument doesn’t quite work. In a system with x% chance of success, we’d expect most people to fail for small x. But some few will still succeed multiple times. Throw in that your odds get better the more you’re successful, and it’s classic survivorship bias.

code_runner 4y ago
I think it’s not binary one way or the other. Companies don’t have to be profitable to be successful. A charismatic leader + lofty goals (FSD, rockets, flame throwers) and you’ll get a ton of money even if you never turn a profit. Let’s not forget the tunnels I’m Vegas btw. They aren’t all winners.

galangalalgol 4y ago

Because it is hard to trust those you hand your money to and not get in the way by checking in too often. Also, not every passionate engineer should be trusted that much. Being able to spot those that are passionate about what you want done, while simultaneously being both competent and trustworthy is a skill that will make you very wealthy, and almost no one has it consistently. A success or three may show that he is one of those people. Or that he is survivorship bias waiting for a reality check. I don't know how to tell, or I would be quite wealthy as well.

bsder 4y ago

Aerospace had a lot of overqualified, underutilized engineers that were spectacularly easy to tap into with a little bit of extra money and a very interesting project. That does not hold for Twitter. There is no magic clump of overqualified, underutilized people to tap into without throwing LOTS of money around. On top of that, Twitter mostly isn't that interesting.

cavisne 4y ago
He could probably make it interesting though. At the moment there is a magic clump of such people, large language model experts from big tech who have left because they got sick of not being able to apply the technology. They are currently floating around in various startups, but we are entering a tough market for VC funding. Twitter can offer hardware, data and a culture of shipping.

iamdbtoo 4y ago

Because success at that scale eventually requires you to exploit some percentage of your employees and most people are not ok with that.

serf 4y ago

> paying smart people and expecting them to work hard - why isn't literally everyone else doing the same? is that a real question that expects an answer , or one of those 'SV-Wisdom from-on-high' sentences? Here's an easy practical answer that will fit 95% of the responses : I don't have the money to hire a lot of experts to execute my ideas, nor do I have the familial or business connections in order to facilitate the loans needed.

fsdjkflsjfsoij 4y ago
> I don't have the money to hire a lot of experts to execute my ideas, nor do I have the familial or business connections in order to facilitate the loans needed. There are lots of people that have those things and are still not a tiny fraction as successful. Most people could be given all of those things and they'd quickly waste them all in a spectacular fashion. Often the people that are the loudest on this issue don't even have their own absolutely trivial finances in order.