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I had this same thought for a while, but I think the answer is simpler in reality. In my opinion, he has an ego problem, and his companies are his best way to f

by V__ 4y ago

I had this same thought for a while, but I think the answer is simpler in reality. In my opinion, he has an ego problem, and his companies are his best way to feel important (or whatever emotion he craves). I don't know whether that was always the case, but to me it seems apparent that is what he has been doing for the past few years. I think it started happening when he realized there was no next big-idea which his companies could actually solve. After Tesla made electric cars trendy and influenced the market (actual accomplishments), his next idea was self-driving. Maybe he didn't know enough at the time or thought he could make it happen quickly, he promised big and failed but can't admit it. So he tried to pull the next shiny thing out of the hat, Cybertruck, semi, solar-roof, roadster, smart-summon, boring-tunnels, Hyperloop etc. They also kept failing or are coming soon TM. For some time SpaceX delivered, but right now they also don't have anything new shiny to show. He's trying to desperately stay relevant, but all his ideas are staring to crumble or are a lot harder to solve than he cares to admit. He started to become edgy, and it spiraled from there. Him being forced to buy Twitter because he couldn't get out of the joke he made, is probably his worst nightmare. His 'coming soon'-excuse isn't working on Twitter, and it's a very public humiliation should he fail. I actually think he is very similar in this regard to Trump. A big sense of self-importance and a need for affirmation which can't handle rejection is what I personally thought his presence at Chappell stand-up showed. I also think that is the reason he is appeasing the right so much. They give him a lot of attention and don't criticize him.

hotpotamus 4y ago
You forgot frying monkeys' brains in an attempt to create a brain-machine interface (turns out that elevating brain temperature more than 2 degrees starts to cause issues). But I have to take issue with some of your selections too. It seems like the semi is in fact shipping, and I don't know if it's actually useful, but perhaps it has some niche in the transport industry. I'm not sure what's up with the Cybertruck, but it doesn't seem infeasible like self-driving might be. And the SpaceX Starship has been making pretty solid incremental progress over the last few years and really does have some potential to further upend the economics of getting tons of material into orbit. But he's clearly been consumed by ego whatever the cause.
mindslight 4y ago
Solar roof is a pretty fantastic idea. What is the point of laying asphalt shingles just to puncture them to fasten another frame that sits above the roof? The problem is that the idea is not "scalable". There are high capital costs, high per-project cost basis (low profit margin), and needs incremental refinement to get it right. It's not the kind of thing that works well when shotgunned nation wide and subbed out to contractors to manage the specifics of actual projects.
sdwr 4y ago
Like this take, feels very even-handed. As an Elon fanboy going back years, I see this wave of hate as temporary, a natural backlash from overexposure. It has a "bullying the substitute teacher" vibe on twitter. He's moving from being an underdog in tech (everyone loves an underdog, and tech people are very forgiving of oddball personality) to an overlord in politics. Rough transition. Would love to see him pull a Herbert-Hoover-in-WWI and use his engineering mindset to genuinely help people. People are focusing on the short-term (7000 people laid off at twitter! lame anti-woke jokes! what a jerk!), and missing the bigger picture. Algorithm-driven content is eating the world's attention. It's misaligned by ad dollars (twitter, fb) and race-to-the-bottom viral stickiness (tiktok). Some lucky people have resilient real-life social networks, but a lot of people are stuck at the bottom of a soulless lonely well. Online feeds are a poor substitute for community. Everyone you see is better than their real-world counterparts (can't look away!) and unattainably distant. Untying twitter from the next-quarter ad spend mindset is a great chance to reengineer it towards connection and away from broad dissemination.

by V__ 4y ago

hotpotamus 4y ago

You forgot frying monkeys' brains in an attempt to create a brain-machine interface (turns out that elevating brain temperature more than 2 degrees starts to cause issues). But I have to take issue with some of your selections too. It seems like the semi is in fact shipping, and I don't know if it's actually useful, but perhaps it has some niche in the transport industry. I'm not sure what's up with the Cybertruck, but it doesn't seem infeasible like self-driving might be. And the SpaceX Starship has been making pretty solid incremental progress over the last few years and really does have some potential to further upend the economics of getting tons of material into orbit. But he's clearly been consumed by ego whatever the cause.

mindslight 4y ago

Solar roof is a pretty fantastic idea. What is the point of laying asphalt shingles just to puncture them to fasten another frame that sits above the roof? The problem is that the idea is not "scalable". There are high capital costs, high per-project cost basis (low profit margin), and needs incremental refinement to get it right. It's not the kind of thing that works well when shotgunned nation wide and subbed out to contractors to manage the specifics of actual projects.

sdwr 4y ago

Like this take, feels very even-handed. As an Elon fanboy going back years, I see this wave of hate as temporary, a natural backlash from overexposure. It has a "bullying the substitute teacher" vibe on twitter. He's moving from being an underdog in tech (everyone loves an underdog, and tech people are very forgiving of oddball personality) to an overlord in politics. Rough transition. Would love to see him pull a Herbert-Hoover-in-WWI and use his engineering mindset to genuinely help people. People are focusing on the short-term (7000 people laid off at twitter! lame anti-woke jokes! what a jerk!), and missing the bigger picture. Algorithm-driven content is eating the world's attention. It's misaligned by ad dollars (twitter, fb) and race-to-the-bottom viral stickiness (tiktok). Some lucky people have resilient real-life social networks, but a lot of people are stuck at the bottom of a soulless lonely well. Online feeds are a poor substitute for community. Everyone you see is better than their real-world counterparts (can't look away!) and unattainably distant. Untying twitter from the next-quarter ad spend mindset is a great chance to reengineer it towards connection and away from broad dissemination.