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I Work for an Elon Musk

I just need to say it to someone. I am friends with, and employed by, a guy who sold his startup for lots of money and turned angel investor. And he worked really hard for it. He’s obsessive and always had more ideas than he knew how to implement. Over the years his extreme wealth, social awkwardness, and million-ideas-a-minute brain has slowly turned him into Elon Musk, except on a smaller scale. I lost my job recently and he hired me to implement some of his ideas. What this amounts to is him calling me up on the phone and talking to me for hours without a break about the minutia of how every single thing should be designed, and then disappearing for weeks. Sometimes he’s calling me from one of his beach houses and I’m taking the call on the bus. I have literally muted him, gotten off the bus, and unmuted him and he’s still talking. Hasn’t noticed I didn’t say a word. He lives in a universe where every one of his ideas has an easy path to millions in ARR. And so it’s worth taking all this time to get everything right in advance and plotting a path to world domination. In my experience, it’s hard to earn your first $10 and you learn what customers want by shipping. He used to be like that too. But he’s the kind of guy that turns down offers from very large companies to run a research project, and his sense of his own brilliance has gone nonlinear. I’m grateful for this “job”. It’s sustaining me during a period where I don’t have a lot going on. On the other hand, I am not cut out to pump up a guy’s ego as my primary career. Doing this every day is undermining my confidence in myself. He invited me to one of his homes to do some hardware hacking. I stayed up overnight to produce a demo. He looked at it the morning, said nothing, but wanted to talk about his next idea for it. Experiences like that make me doubt my own ability. The guy really did make zillions and has had a few home runs as an angel investor. Maybe what I made was shit?? Maybe I don’t have what it takes??? My friend/boss knows lots of other entrepreneurs, of course. I’ve inquired about whether he could help me out with my job search. He says he’ll get back to me.

PaulHoule 4y ago
I used to be surprised that anybody fell for those Nigerian scam emails, then I heard about multiple cases of whales being fleeced for millions. Then it hit me that there really are some rich entitled f*ks who really think a few million dollars might fall out of the sky and hit them. Some of the worst suckers for Amway I ever met were a family who inherited a ton of money because one of their ancestors founded an airline.
DevX101 4y ago
Sounds like you have a phenomenal opportunity that you're wasting. A friend, proven founder AND investor has hired you personally to implement at least one of many ideas he has. I'm going to assume given the track record, these ideas are actually good with market demand. This is a rare find. Most idea people are 'wantrepreneurs', but here you have the real deal. And yet you put him on mute, characterize your job as stroking his ego, and ask him for a job (I thought working with him was your job?) If you can manage and redirect his manic energy, prioritize the many ideas, and commit to building out a single one in the next 6 months, you're in the rare position of potentially becoming a co-founder of a company that won't have any problems fundraising.
- muskox_throaway 4y ago
  When I started this relationship I thought exactly as you did. How lucky am I? But instead we’re just spinning our wheels on things like creating the perfectly scalable database design before talking to a single customer. I too thought I was collaborating with someone with a great track record. But he doesn’t care about any of my ideas or contributions. He’s not a bad person. It’s all noise to him because the sound of his own ideas is so much louder in his brain. Even if I implement one of his ideas, overnight, he’s not interested. Once, I put my foot down and said we have to ship something and he was taken aback. For a few minutes. Then he rolled right back into his usual mode of ideation. I understand why this story might seem really frustrating to hear and you wonder why I can’t make it work. I’ve been asking myself the same questions. In the end the economic balance may be too tilted in his favor for it to be a productive collaboration. This is a hobby for him and a lifeline for me. He‘a shooting for something that gets him into a different comma club, and gains the respect of people even richer than he is. So for him, any amount of preplanning is justifiable. I’d be happy with something that just had customers. If we were economic equals I could credibly threaten to walk away if we don’t do at least some of the things my way. But I can’t.
  - DevX101 4y ago
    Working for this guy sounds like it's 50% managing his executive function, 50% doing the work. It's not for everybody. Some of Musk's colleagues have mentioned their job is something like this. But it's also paid off extremely well for them. Up to you to decide whether you can pull off both of these jobs. On the show 'Billions', Bobby Axelrod, the hedge fund founder has a right hand woman, Wendy Rhoades[1] who keeps him grounded and channels the mania into productive output. Sounds like your friends needs someone like her. 1. https://billions.fandom.com/wiki/Wendy_Rhoades https://billions.fandom.com/wiki/Wendy_Rhoades
logicalmonster 4y ago
1) I don't want to mock anybody, but do you suspect he might have some kind of condition like autism or ADHD or something? 2) Perhaps your goal should be to see if he wants to build a company (even a small one with a few engineers) that can work on implementing and refining his many ideas. If you and him can work well together (at least as well as somebody like that can be worked with) perhaps you should try and see if he'd be interested in that.
- muskox_throaway 4y ago
  1) oh yeah, he is medicated for it 2) he has one of those already. This is a side project from his little startup studio
swman 4y ago
I mean, if this guy is really as wealthy and successful as you say, you can quit and recommend me to him. I can build any software he wants, and I have some ideas I could bounce off him. I don’t know anyone like that irl and have been trying. Let me know.
dougb5 4y ago
I've known several people in your employer's situation -- they're not so rare -- and it seems like what they want more than anything, after having made their zillions, is social validation that they didn't just get lucky. The validation-seeking behavior includes lengthy one-sided chats with their old acquaintances about their latest ideas. I think, unless you'll starve otherwise, life is too short to waste your limited time and attention on people who do not respect you, and who treat you purely as an instrument in their own plans.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I used to be surprised that anybody fell for those Nigerian scam emails, then I heard about multiple cases of whales being fleeced for millions. Then it hit me that there really are some rich entitled f*ks who really think a few million dollars might fall out of the sky and hit them. Some of the worst suckers for Amway I ever met were a family who inherited a ton of money because one of their ancestors founded an airline.

DevX101 4y ago

Sounds like you have a phenomenal opportunity that you're wasting. A friend, proven founder AND investor has hired you personally to implement at least one of many ideas he has. I'm going to assume given the track record, these ideas are actually good with market demand. This is a rare find. Most idea people are 'wantrepreneurs', but here you have the real deal. And yet you put him on mute, characterize your job as stroking his ego, and ask him for a job (I thought working with him was your job?) If you can manage and redirect his manic energy, prioritize the many ideas, and commit to building out a single one in the next 6 months, you're in the rare position of potentially becoming a co-founder of a company that won't have any problems fundraising.

muskox_throaway 4y ago
When I started this relationship I thought exactly as you did. How lucky am I? But instead we’re just spinning our wheels on things like creating the perfectly scalable database design before talking to a single customer. I too thought I was collaborating with someone with a great track record. But he doesn’t care about any of my ideas or contributions. He’s not a bad person. It’s all noise to him because the sound of his own ideas is so much louder in his brain. Even if I implement one of his ideas, overnight, he’s not interested. Once, I put my foot down and said we have to ship something and he was taken aback. For a few minutes. Then he rolled right back into his usual mode of ideation. I understand why this story might seem really frustrating to hear and you wonder why I can’t make it work. I’ve been asking myself the same questions. In the end the economic balance may be too tilted in his favor for it to be a productive collaboration. This is a hobby for him and a lifeline for me. He‘a shooting for something that gets him into a different comma club, and gains the respect of people even richer than he is. So for him, any amount of preplanning is justifiable. I’d be happy with something that just had customers. If we were economic equals I could credibly threaten to walk away if we don’t do at least some of the things my way. But I can’t.
- DevX101 4y ago
  Working for this guy sounds like it's 50% managing his executive function, 50% doing the work. It's not for everybody. Some of Musk's colleagues have mentioned their job is something like this. But it's also paid off extremely well for them. Up to you to decide whether you can pull off both of these jobs. On the show 'Billions', Bobby Axelrod, the hedge fund founder has a right hand woman, Wendy Rhoades[1] who keeps him grounded and channels the mania into productive output. Sounds like your friends needs someone like her. 1. https://billions.fandom.com/wiki/Wendy_Rhoades https://billions.fandom.com/wiki/Wendy_Rhoades

logicalmonster 4y ago

1) I don't want to mock anybody, but do you suspect he might have some kind of condition like autism or ADHD or something? 2) Perhaps your goal should be to see if he wants to build a company (even a small one with a few engineers) that can work on implementing and refining his many ideas. If you and him can work well together (at least as well as somebody like that can be worked with) perhaps you should try and see if he'd be interested in that.

muskox_throaway 4y ago
1) oh yeah, he is medicated for it 2) he has one of those already. This is a side project from his little startup studio

swman 4y ago

I mean, if this guy is really as wealthy and successful as you say, you can quit and recommend me to him. I can build any software he wants, and I have some ideas I could bounce off him. I don’t know anyone like that irl and have been trying. Let me know.

dougb5 4y ago

I've known several people in your employer's situation -- they're not so rare -- and it seems like what they want more than anything, after having made their zillions, is social validation that they didn't just get lucky. The validation-seeking behavior includes lengthy one-sided chats with their old acquaintances about their latest ideas. I think, unless you'll starve otherwise, life is too short to waste your limited time and attention on people who do not respect you, and who treat you purely as an instrument in their own plans.