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Recently, I have a theory that Musk is a politician, not an entrepreneur. It just so happened that he wasn't born in the US to formally pursuit the politician

by NhanH 4y ago

Recently, I have a theory that Musk is a politician, not an entrepreneur. It just so happened that he wasn't born in the US to formally pursuit the politician career (yes, I know that President is nominally the only office limited to US-born citizen. That isn't the point, it's still vastly harder to be a high ranking politician without being born in the country) From that viewpoint, it makes sense as to how he could be successful in some venture and not so in others. The hypothesis would mean that he's very good at organizing, dealing with bureaucracy, doing PR etc. Not so much at actually building things, designing, engineering, or basically building consumer business.

zarzavat 4y ago
I have the opposite view. Musk is a fantastic engineer, but a terrible politician. He’s the kind of man who starts a rocket company and knows exactly how everything on the rocket works, but then impulsively smokes a joint on a podcast and risks his security clearance and defense funding to said rocket company. Musk has no political sense whatsoever, he’s far too impulsive. But the impulsiveness does make headlines which people mistake as media savvy. That’s how he got himself into this mess in the first place. Musk impulsively decided to offer to buy Twitter with no due diligence, then sensibly tried to back out when he came to his senses (helped a bit by the Fed), but was forced to purchase it anyway. Of course it’s a disaster. He bought it on a whim and has no idea how to run a social media company.
- baxtr 4y ago
  Same could be said easily about Trump…
  - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
    The difference between Elon and Trump is that when Trump gets in trouble it’s for something reprehensible that his supporters like. When Elon gets in trouble it’s for something that nobody supports (like calling that guy a pedo), and his supporters just sort of feel bad about.
- BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
  His approach to refactoring Twitter, I mean in terms of org structure, culture, and the code itself... is frankly giving me a zero engineering intuition impression. Also he didn't design the SpaceX rocket. He had a hand in the first prototype, which crash and burned. Literally. That's his contribution in terms of engineering. His overall contribution is PR and attracting capital. That's really it. I'd say sits closer to a politician.
pavel_lishin 4y ago
I think Musk is a celebrity, not a politician or an engineer or an entrepreneur. Politicians have to answer to their constituents, engineers have to answer to the laws of physics, and entrepreneurs have to answer to the laws of economics. Celebrities are beholden to nothing but marketing, and until recently, Musk (or someone on his team) has been doing a pretty good job of selling his image.

by NhanH 4y ago

zarzavat 4y ago

I have the opposite view. Musk is a fantastic engineer, but a terrible politician. He’s the kind of man who starts a rocket company and knows exactly how everything on the rocket works, but then impulsively smokes a joint on a podcast and risks his security clearance and defense funding to said rocket company. Musk has no political sense whatsoever, he’s far too impulsive. But the impulsiveness does make headlines which people mistake as media savvy. That’s how he got himself into this mess in the first place. Musk impulsively decided to offer to buy Twitter with no due diligence, then sensibly tried to back out when he came to his senses (helped a bit by the Fed), but was forced to purchase it anyway. Of course it’s a disaster. He bought it on a whim and has no idea how to run a social media company.

baxtr 4y ago
Same could be said easily about Trump…
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  The difference between Elon and Trump is that when Trump gets in trouble it’s for something reprehensible that his supporters like. When Elon gets in trouble it’s for something that nobody supports (like calling that guy a pedo), and his supporters just sort of feel bad about.
BulgarianIdiot 4y ago
His approach to refactoring Twitter, I mean in terms of org structure, culture, and the code itself... is frankly giving me a zero engineering intuition impression. Also he didn't design the SpaceX rocket. He had a hand in the first prototype, which crash and burned. Literally. That's his contribution in terms of engineering. His overall contribution is PR and attracting capital. That's really it. I'd say sits closer to a politician.

pavel_lishin 4y ago

I think Musk is a celebrity, not a politician or an engineer or an entrepreneur. Politicians have to answer to their constituents, engineers have to answer to the laws of physics, and entrepreneurs have to answer to the laws of economics. Celebrities are beholden to nothing but marketing, and until recently, Musk (or someone on his team) has been doing a pretty good job of selling his image.