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You're probably having trouble because neither Musk's narrative nor edge have come from being a cunning salesperson. This is “Tesla stock price is too high imo”

You're probably having trouble because neither Musk's narrative nor edge have come from being a cunning salesperson. This is “Tesla stock price is too high imo” Musk, robotaxi next year Musk, other person is a pedophile Musk, yell at legal authorities Musk. Musk's edge has come from tackling hard, technical problems, and doing so successfully, for long enough, on enticing enough problems, that people started to buy the dream. Contrast, leftist flamebait is just Musk being impolitic on Twitter, and an increasingly-hostile anti-left Musk is just what you get when the left runs campaigns specifically attacking him. It's not a smart business move because it's not a business move, merely a reflection of the increasing polarization of America.

MrMan 4y ago
You are dead wrong about a lot of things here. Musk may not seem like a salesman to you, but he is actually one of the best salesmen and marketers we have seen, and created the major brands which have enriched him basically entirely using media coverage of him and his companies, and massive social media reach using his personal twitter account. In my opinion the one thing he is truly good at is sales and marketing. Selling the dream, and a very good design team, is what made Tesla what it is. I have no comment on whether technical solutions requiring the coordination of hundreds and thousands of people can be credited to one non-technical person, nor the political stuff.
- Veedrac 4y ago
  It's political to say it now, but Musk is technical. Here's some evidence to that effect[1]. I know of more accounts, but really, just watch the Starbase tour videos and make up your own mind. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/evidence_that_musk_is_the_chief_engineer_of_spacex/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I don't think testimonials from core SpaceX employees is evidence. They all have very strong incentives to publicly fluff Musk.
    - harpiaharpyja 4y ago
      It's possible to have a leader who was technical at one point but no longer has any meaningful technical contribution. I worked for a company where the founder and CEO built the first several iterations of the flagship product essentially by himself. Now the company has more than 100 employees, and he did earnestly try to keep a pulse on technical matters in the R&D department (where I worked) and sometimes gave input but honestly it was usually better when he didn't. Too many things pulling his attention in different directions.
  - random314 4y ago
    Musk demands that employees fluff him. So folks invested in SpaceX like employees can't be trusted. There are enough blind and Twitter accounts of Elon being a dunce at SpaceX with the execs coddling him and feeding him ideas that he can regurgitate as his own. Musk has some software engineering experience from zip2 and from fan boy Ashlee Vances book he was really bad. His Twitter shenanigans further demonstrated his poor CS skills. He has no background in aerospace at all. Yet he appointed himself as the chief engineer of SpaceX on day 1. He also published neuralink white paper with himself as the sole author in what is a rip off of a Duke professors lab work. He was solo author of hyperloop white paper which is laughed at by the physics community. In short, he pretends to be a world expert in 1. Software engineering 2. Aerospace engineering 3. Neuro physical bionic research 4. Underground tunnel boring, way way ahead of (10X) the most cutting edge current technology 5. Vacuum tunnel transport 6. AI, beyond just self driving- including AGI paraphrasing-"Zuckerberg and LeCunn don't understand AI". To top it off, he has a generic BA in 1997 from UPenn and no STEM degree. His PhD admit to Stanford physics in 1995 has to be his most bald faced lie. He desperately wants to be seen as a scientist/engineer, which he is not. All of his classmates recall him from his econ classes, not physics. Though I did find some unverified quora story about a professor recalling Musk scoring a B grade in a physics class. If you look at his history his only major success was scaling the production of a car someone else designed and built to millions per year. He is more of a business exec than an engineer in any sense. He definitely has an above average IQ, hampered by an extreme case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. All of his shenanigans can be explained by the search of Narcissistic supply and deeply internalized feelings of inadequacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_supply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_supply
- hedora 4y ago
  I'd argue spacex and tesla have terrrible terrible design teams. Their stuff is pretty, sure. However, that is only half of good industrial design. Their products frequently have severe issues with usability, manufacturability, etc.
- kennedywm 4y ago
  I would have said the same thing before the twitter fiasco. I'm curious what information and assumptions he's operating on.
JohnFen 4y ago
> Musk's edge has come from tackling hard, technical problems, and doing so successfully What hard technical problems has he ever successfully tackled? Serious question. His two successes, Tesla and SpaceX, are companies he purchased. He hired people to tackle hard problems, yes, but what has he done personally?
- oarsinsync 4y ago
  Wozniak made the Apple II, what did Jobs do personally? Not a fan of Musk (or marketers generally), but it doesn’t seem fair to be dismissing strong leaders who understand how to market their products effectively. Life doesn’t usually work out like Field of Dreams. It doesn’t matter how good you build it, they won’t come if they don’t know about it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - peterashford 4y ago
    Yeah but the claim being discussed wasn't "Is Elon good at hype" it was "Musk's edge has come from tackling hard, technical problems"
- skissane 4y ago
  > His two successes, Tesla and SpaceX, are companies he purchased. Musk himself founded SpaceX, rocket engineer Tom Mueller was his first employee. He did not "purchase" SpaceX from anybody. Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. In early 2004, they brought Musk on as an investor, who provided such a large share of the early investment (Series A onwards), he soon owned the majority of the company. Eberhard and Tarpenning would continue as CEO and CFO until they had a falling-out with Musk around 2007/2008, and Musk used his majority ownership to fire them. Under the terms of 2009 lawsuit settlement, Eberhard, Tarpenning, Musk, Ian Wright and J. B. Straubel agreed among themselves that all five can be described as "co-founders" of Tesla. If someone pitches a startup to a venture capitalist–which is the role Musk was playing at the beginning of his involvement in Tesla–who through providing the bulk of the Series A funding (and subsequent funding rounds), ends up with majority control, is that accurately described as a "purchase"? For anyone other Elon Musk, I doubt people would use that word. > He hired people to tackle hard problems, yes, but what has he done personally? Doesn't that describe many founders? For a founder/CEO, a very big chunk of their work, is making sure they pick the right leaders beneath them, and making the right picks vs the wrong ones can be the difference between a runaway success and bankruptcy.

MrMan 4y ago

You are dead wrong about a lot of things here. Musk may not seem like a salesman to you, but he is actually one of the best salesmen and marketers we have seen, and created the major brands which have enriched him basically entirely using media coverage of him and his companies, and massive social media reach using his personal twitter account. In my opinion the one thing he is truly good at is sales and marketing. Selling the dream, and a very good design team, is what made Tesla what it is. I have no comment on whether technical solutions requiring the coordination of hundreds and thousands of people can be credited to one non-technical person, nor the political stuff.

Veedrac 4y ago
It's political to say it now, but Musk is technical. Here's some evidence to that effect[1]. I know of more accounts, but really, just watch the Starbase tour videos and make up your own mind. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/evidence_that_musk_is_the_chief_engineer_of_spacex/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I don't think testimonials from core SpaceX employees is evidence. They all have very strong incentives to publicly fluff Musk.
  - harpiaharpyja 4y ago
    It's possible to have a leader who was technical at one point but no longer has any meaningful technical contribution. I worked for a company where the founder and CEO built the first several iterations of the flagship product essentially by himself. Now the company has more than 100 employees, and he did earnestly try to keep a pulse on technical matters in the R&D department (where I worked) and sometimes gave input but honestly it was usually better when he didn't. Too many things pulling his attention in different directions.
- random314 4y ago
  Musk demands that employees fluff him. So folks invested in SpaceX like employees can't be trusted. There are enough blind and Twitter accounts of Elon being a dunce at SpaceX with the execs coddling him and feeding him ideas that he can regurgitate as his own. Musk has some software engineering experience from zip2 and from fan boy Ashlee Vances book he was really bad. His Twitter shenanigans further demonstrated his poor CS skills. He has no background in aerospace at all. Yet he appointed himself as the chief engineer of SpaceX on day 1. He also published neuralink white paper with himself as the sole author in what is a rip off of a Duke professors lab work. He was solo author of hyperloop white paper which is laughed at by the physics community. In short, he pretends to be a world expert in 1. Software engineering 2. Aerospace engineering 3. Neuro physical bionic research 4. Underground tunnel boring, way way ahead of (10X) the most cutting edge current technology 5. Vacuum tunnel transport 6. AI, beyond just self driving- including AGI paraphrasing-"Zuckerberg and LeCunn don't understand AI". To top it off, he has a generic BA in 1997 from UPenn and no STEM degree. His PhD admit to Stanford physics in 1995 has to be his most bald faced lie. He desperately wants to be seen as a scientist/engineer, which he is not. All of his classmates recall him from his econ classes, not physics. Though I did find some unverified quora story about a professor recalling Musk scoring a B grade in a physics class. If you look at his history his only major success was scaling the production of a car someone else designed and built to millions per year. He is more of a business exec than an engineer in any sense. He definitely has an above average IQ, hampered by an extreme case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. All of his shenanigans can be explained by the search of Narcissistic supply and deeply internalized feelings of inadequacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_supply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_supply
hedora 4y ago
I'd argue spacex and tesla have terrrible terrible design teams. Their stuff is pretty, sure. However, that is only half of good industrial design. Their products frequently have severe issues with usability, manufacturability, etc.
kennedywm 4y ago
I would have said the same thing before the twitter fiasco. I'm curious what information and assumptions he's operating on.

JohnFen 4y ago

> Musk's edge has come from tackling hard, technical problems, and doing so successfully What hard technical problems has he ever successfully tackled? Serious question. His two successes, Tesla and SpaceX, are companies he purchased. He hired people to tackle hard problems, yes, but what has he done personally?

oarsinsync 4y ago
Wozniak made the Apple II, what did Jobs do personally? Not a fan of Musk (or marketers generally), but it doesn’t seem fair to be dismissing strong leaders who understand how to market their products effectively. Life doesn’t usually work out like Field of Dreams. It doesn’t matter how good you build it, they won’t come if they don’t know about it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- peterashford 4y ago
  Yeah but the claim being discussed wasn't "Is Elon good at hype" it was "Musk's edge has come from tackling hard, technical problems"
skissane 4y ago
> His two successes, Tesla and SpaceX, are companies he purchased. Musk himself founded SpaceX, rocket engineer Tom Mueller was his first employee. He did not "purchase" SpaceX from anybody. Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. In early 2004, they brought Musk on as an investor, who provided such a large share of the early investment (Series A onwards), he soon owned the majority of the company. Eberhard and Tarpenning would continue as CEO and CFO until they had a falling-out with Musk around 2007/2008, and Musk used his majority ownership to fire them. Under the terms of 2009 lawsuit settlement, Eberhard, Tarpenning, Musk, Ian Wright and J. B. Straubel agreed among themselves that all five can be described as "co-founders" of Tesla. If someone pitches a startup to a venture capitalist–which is the role Musk was playing at the beginning of his involvement in Tesla–who through providing the bulk of the Series A funding (and subsequent funding rounds), ends up with majority control, is that accurately described as a "purchase"? For anyone other Elon Musk, I doubt people would use that word. > He hired people to tackle hard problems, yes, but what has he done personally? Doesn't that describe many founders? For a founder/CEO, a very big chunk of their work, is making sure they pick the right leaders beneath them, and making the right picks vs the wrong ones can be the difference between a runaway success and bankruptcy.