5 ms·

People at Tesla and SpaceX have achieved great things, not Musk. All he's demonstrating is that CEO pay and comp should never have got as high as it has and ta

People at Tesla and SpaceX have achieved great things, not Musk. All he's demonstrating is that CEO pay and comp should never have got as high as it has and taxes on rich people needs to go way higher, they are just going to waste it any way.

randomsearch 4y ago
> People at Tesla and SpaceX have achieved great things, not Musk You can’t be serious. So Musk can’t take any credit for what those companies have achieved? By that logic, he should also be blameless for any problems at Twitter.
- mgoetzke 4y ago
  And he never did anything at all, because these people saying that where part of every meeting and decision happening at his companies. It's mindblowing
- themoonisachees 4y ago
  Both tesla and spaceX are famously structured internally specifically to handle musk and his ideas, in the sense that they will have a team dedicated to listening to him then basically doing the minimum viable thing to make him think his ideas have been implemented. When management has an adversarial relationship with the CEO, it's hard to see what contributions musk could have made to the products directly. I will however concede that he has been a valuable viral marketing tool, but obviously that is changing rapidly. The reason the twitter fiasco is happening is that twitter doesn't have such a team dedicated to cushioning musk, and so he goes around dictating whatever thoughts he has on an already major platform, even if these thoughts are directly contradictory with earlier ones, as was visible publicly on twitter. Other than PR, which he is becoming worthless for (unless you count appealing to the historically not-believing-in-climate-change right as good PR for an EV company), i don't think musk has achieved much personally beyond having capital (with questionable legitimacy re its acquisition).
  - skissane 4y ago
    > Both tesla and spaceX are famously structured internally specifically to handle musk and his ideas, in the sense that they will have a team dedicated to listening to him then basically doing the minimum viable thing to make him think his ideas have been implemented. Elon didn't design Starship – SpaceX engineering teams did. Why don't ULA's engineers do something like Starship, is it because they aren't capable? I don't think that's fair; I think many engineers at ULA would love to do something like Starship, but Tory Bruno won't let them. And why is that? Well, I think Tory would love it if ULA could do something like Starship too, but he only has as much money as Boeing and Lockheed Martin are willing to give him, and he can only spend it on what they feel comfortable spending it on. And as far as Boeing and Lockmart go, why risk billions on some high-risk commercial space venture, when there are plenty of far safer big juicy defense contracts to chase instead? That's the thing that Elon brings to SpaceX – expansive requirements, but also a willingness to risk billions in pursuing them. Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk make a good team, because she balances that out with pragmatism, organisation, management efficiency, customer focus. But, imagine if Elon had died suddenly 10 years ago – would Starship still be where it is today? As excellent an executive as Gwynne is, if it was all up to her, she might not have been wiling to make as big and risky bets as Elon has. So I think this idea that all that Elon brings to the table is capital and PR is very mistaken. The other thing he takes to the table, is a willingness to take big risks which few others would, and the direction he gives to his teams to chase the limits of what is currently possible rather than settling for what is more obviously feasible. Sometimes, it all blows up in his face; other times, it has been a recipe for immense success. But, in that regard, both the success and the failure are coming from the same place.
    - _5uxp 4y ago
      I think looking at Blue Origin and comparing the achievements since founding is a clear difference in the leading between both? Bezos has not less capital or PR. But Blue Origin is almost forgetten to irrelevance at this point.
  - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
    SpaceX was founded by Musk, he is the CEO, CTO, chairman of the board, owns 47% of the stock and has voting control of the board. You seriously believe he allows a team of people to act as an intermediary between him and the company, yesman and nod to him, then go and do their own thing? Step back for a second and consider how incredibly unlikely this scenario is. Try and put another successful billionaire and the company they founded into a hypothetical, and tell me it's realistic.
- class4behavior 4y ago
  Not deserving any credit and not giving him more than is actually due are two different things. Musk is not talentless. His abilities allowed him to make the best of his opportunities of the time and his own circumstances. But this is a story of a fortunate business person, not some inspiring role model in any professional field or just as a person. On the whole he isn't even unique, just very public and the richest one. >It’s important not to make any issue an “I align with X so you’re against me” conflict. Ethics aren't some opinion you may or should just keep to yourself while lack of reason in public discourse does not need to be tolerated either. Of course, that applies to the rest of us as well. There is definitely a subconscious wish within the hivemind of the public to see a bad guy fail, so a lot of people are willing stretch the truth a little bit.
  - randomsearch 4y ago
    I think that position confuses ethics with condemnation of an individual. You can be ethically against stealing, but still see the positive elements in the life of a thief. It is absolutely not necessary to turn the discussion around Musk into a trial. It is possible he is neither guilty or innocent, but rather a mixture of good and bad - like everyone on here, even those condemning him as a terrible human.
    - class4behavior 4y ago
      >You can be ethically against stealing, but still see the positive elements in the life of a thief. Translated: You can use ethics to judge an action or just look at its risk/reward ratio? Yeah, that's what Musk does but that's also why plenty of people consider him a (near) sociopath.
nxmnxm99 4y ago
[flagged]

randomsearch 4y ago

> People at Tesla and SpaceX have achieved great things, not Musk You can’t be serious. So Musk can’t take any credit for what those companies have achieved? By that logic, he should also be blameless for any problems at Twitter.

mgoetzke 4y ago
And he never did anything at all, because these people saying that where part of every meeting and decision happening at his companies. It's mindblowing
themoonisachees 4y ago
Both tesla and spaceX are famously structured internally specifically to handle musk and his ideas, in the sense that they will have a team dedicated to listening to him then basically doing the minimum viable thing to make him think his ideas have been implemented. When management has an adversarial relationship with the CEO, it's hard to see what contributions musk could have made to the products directly. I will however concede that he has been a valuable viral marketing tool, but obviously that is changing rapidly. The reason the twitter fiasco is happening is that twitter doesn't have such a team dedicated to cushioning musk, and so he goes around dictating whatever thoughts he has on an already major platform, even if these thoughts are directly contradictory with earlier ones, as was visible publicly on twitter. Other than PR, which he is becoming worthless for (unless you count appealing to the historically not-believing-in-climate-change right as good PR for an EV company), i don't think musk has achieved much personally beyond having capital (with questionable legitimacy re its acquisition).
- skissane 4y ago
  > Both tesla and spaceX are famously structured internally specifically to handle musk and his ideas, in the sense that they will have a team dedicated to listening to him then basically doing the minimum viable thing to make him think his ideas have been implemented. Elon didn't design Starship – SpaceX engineering teams did. Why don't ULA's engineers do something like Starship, is it because they aren't capable? I don't think that's fair; I think many engineers at ULA would love to do something like Starship, but Tory Bruno won't let them. And why is that? Well, I think Tory would love it if ULA could do something like Starship too, but he only has as much money as Boeing and Lockheed Martin are willing to give him, and he can only spend it on what they feel comfortable spending it on. And as far as Boeing and Lockmart go, why risk billions on some high-risk commercial space venture, when there are plenty of far safer big juicy defense contracts to chase instead? That's the thing that Elon brings to SpaceX – expansive requirements, but also a willingness to risk billions in pursuing them. Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk make a good team, because she balances that out with pragmatism, organisation, management efficiency, customer focus. But, imagine if Elon had died suddenly 10 years ago – would Starship still be where it is today? As excellent an executive as Gwynne is, if it was all up to her, she might not have been wiling to make as big and risky bets as Elon has. So I think this idea that all that Elon brings to the table is capital and PR is very mistaken. The other thing he takes to the table, is a willingness to take big risks which few others would, and the direction he gives to his teams to chase the limits of what is currently possible rather than settling for what is more obviously feasible. Sometimes, it all blows up in his face; other times, it has been a recipe for immense success. But, in that regard, both the success and the failure are coming from the same place.
  - _5uxp 4y ago
    I think looking at Blue Origin and comparing the achievements since founding is a clear difference in the leading between both? Bezos has not less capital or PR. But Blue Origin is almost forgetten to irrelevance at this point.
- TheHappyOddish 4y ago
  SpaceX was founded by Musk, he is the CEO, CTO, chairman of the board, owns 47% of the stock and has voting control of the board. You seriously believe he allows a team of people to act as an intermediary between him and the company, yesman and nod to him, then go and do their own thing? Step back for a second and consider how incredibly unlikely this scenario is. Try and put another successful billionaire and the company they founded into a hypothetical, and tell me it's realistic.
class4behavior 4y ago
Not deserving any credit and not giving him more than is actually due are two different things. Musk is not talentless. His abilities allowed him to make the best of his opportunities of the time and his own circumstances. But this is a story of a fortunate business person, not some inspiring role model in any professional field or just as a person. On the whole he isn't even unique, just very public and the richest one. >It’s important not to make any issue an “I align with X so you’re against me” conflict. Ethics aren't some opinion you may or should just keep to yourself while lack of reason in public discourse does not need to be tolerated either. Of course, that applies to the rest of us as well. There is definitely a subconscious wish within the hivemind of the public to see a bad guy fail, so a lot of people are willing stretch the truth a little bit.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  I think that position confuses ethics with condemnation of an individual. You can be ethically against stealing, but still see the positive elements in the life of a thief. It is absolutely not necessary to turn the discussion around Musk into a trial. It is possible he is neither guilty or innocent, but rather a mixture of good and bad - like everyone on here, even those condemning him as a terrible human.
  - class4behavior 4y ago
    >You can be ethically against stealing, but still see the positive elements in the life of a thief. Translated: You can use ethics to judge an action or just look at its risk/reward ratio? Yeah, that's what Musk does but that's also why plenty of people consider him a (near) sociopath.

nxmnxm99 4y ago

[flagged]