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>They supposedly like the money and the image he brings to companies, but need to protect the companies from his influence. This "explanation" doesn't pass the

>They supposedly like the money and the image he brings to companies, but need to protect the companies from his influence. This "explanation" doesn't pass the smell test, because the chronology of cause-and-effect is inconsistent. Elon's companies get successful, which makes him famous... which explains how his companies were successful before he got famous?

plorkyeran 4y ago
There are many who believe that Paypal was a success in spite of Musk and not because of him, and that was his only pre-fame company.
- nostrademons 4y ago
  He also founded Zip2, although if you're going "Huh? What's that?" it kinda proves the point.
nostrademons 4y ago
He also has a nose for identifying business ideas where there's an actual market, and for sniffing out talent that's already working on those problems effectively. Musk didn't found PayPal - he founded X.com, a competitor of Confinity (founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin), and then Peter Thiel convinced him to merge to reduce competition in the space. His "contributions" to PayPal post-merger were largely limited to trying to convince them to switch from Linux to Windows servers, and bad ideas about software architecture. You can read about this in Levchin's entry in "Founders at Work" [1] Musk didn't found Tesla. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning did. Musk came in as one of the first investors and then forced the founders out, then got his role rewritten into a "founder" title with a lawsuit. Musk did found SpaceX. However, his role was basically that of a talent scout. Early hires like Gwynne Shotwell and Tom Mueller were critical, and he basically poached them from Boeing & TRW. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/B092RC56HW/ https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/...
cyanydeez 4y ago
He was never a head of any of his companies. Your smell test also fits a random walk, where hundreds of other tech nerds simply walked into the wrong deals, hallways, etc. So while I agree there's likely not a walking Elon cleanup crew, the popularity of Elon matches a random momentum that coalesces in American capitalism.
- schiffern 4y ago
  >He was never a head of any of his companies. I'll be sure to remind people of this (and cite this comment) whenever anyone criticizes Elon Musk for something Tesla/SpaceX does. ;) Just semantics but I am curious: what business titles do you consider "head" titles? >also fits a random walk, where hundreds of other tech nerds simply walked into the wrong deals, hallways, etc. Not really. To explain multiple enormous successes merely by random chance (and what's worse, claiming his odds are lower than average, ie "in spite of him") so vanishingly unlikely that it's a statistical impossibility.
  - yowzadave 4y ago
    Well, once you’ve had that first big success, the subsequent ones become much more likely; you now have access to networks of people and money, a measure of notoriety, and chunk of cash that allows you to take numerous risks that others would not.
  - cyanydeez 4y ago
    He started none of those companies.
    - schiffern 4y ago
      I asked about head-ing, not start-ing. What corporate titles does someone need to "head" a company? Elon founded SpaceX. That fact is totally uncontroversial, even among critics.
btown 4y ago
https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/origin-stories/elon-musk https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/origin-stories/elon-musk is an essential read about Musk's first company Zip2, whose $307 million payday in 1999 set off his ability to be one of the first funders (and only retroactively a founder) of X.com which would become Paypal. His work at Zip2 was incredibly consistent with his pattern: a person with visionary ideas, an effective prototyper, an incredible ability to sell with smoke and mirrors... but only successful in business to the extent his companies are protected from him: > ...in early 1996 the firm Mohr Davidow Ventures invested $3 million into the company, on the condition that Musk hand over most of his shares and cede operational control to a seasoned tech executive named Rich Sorkin. Musk was demoted to Chief Technology Officer, and not surprisingly, he hated to see someone else run his own business. But he needed the money to take Zip2 to the next level, so he took the deal. > The new programmers found that they needed to rewrite most of the software, to make it more efficient. Musk’s DIY approach to coding didn’t include chunking, so he inadvertently created a “hairball”: a tangled mess of code that’s nearly impossible to unravel if anything goes wrong. > Often he would re-write his programmers’ code after they left work at the end of the day, without telling them of the changes. He was also prone to micro-managing and rudely criticizing his team. Needless to say, they found him difficult to work with. But Zip2 became vital to the online transition for traditional newspapers and other media. Right place, right time, Musk being actively managed from the very beginning. But he's incapable of recognizing now that he needs that support system.

plorkyeran 4y ago

There are many who believe that Paypal was a success in spite of Musk and not because of him, and that was his only pre-fame company.

nostrademons 4y ago
He also founded Zip2, although if you're going "Huh? What's that?" it kinda proves the point.

nostrademons 4y ago

He also has a nose for identifying business ideas where there's an actual market, and for sniffing out talent that's already working on those problems effectively. Musk didn't found PayPal - he founded X.com, a competitor of Confinity (founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin), and then Peter Thiel convinced him to merge to reduce competition in the space. His "contributions" to PayPal post-merger were largely limited to trying to convince them to switch from Linux to Windows servers, and bad ideas about software architecture. You can read about this in Levchin's entry in "Founders at Work" [1] Musk didn't found Tesla. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning did. Musk came in as one of the first investors and then forced the founders out, then got his role rewritten into a "founder" title with a lawsuit. Musk did found SpaceX. However, his role was basically that of a talent scout. Early hires like Gwynne Shotwell and Tom Mueller were critical, and he basically poached them from Boeing & TRW. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/B092RC56HW/ https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/...

cyanydeez 4y ago

He was never a head of any of his companies. Your smell test also fits a random walk, where hundreds of other tech nerds simply walked into the wrong deals, hallways, etc. So while I agree there's likely not a walking Elon cleanup crew, the popularity of Elon matches a random momentum that coalesces in American capitalism.

schiffern 4y ago
>He was never a head of any of his companies. I'll be sure to remind people of this (and cite this comment) whenever anyone criticizes Elon Musk for something Tesla/SpaceX does. ;) Just semantics but I am curious: what business titles do you consider "head" titles? >also fits a random walk, where hundreds of other tech nerds simply walked into the wrong deals, hallways, etc. Not really. To explain multiple enormous successes merely by random chance (and what's worse, claiming his odds are lower than average, ie "in spite of him") so vanishingly unlikely that it's a statistical impossibility.
- yowzadave 4y ago
  Well, once you’ve had that first big success, the subsequent ones become much more likely; you now have access to networks of people and money, a measure of notoriety, and chunk of cash that allows you to take numerous risks that others would not.
- cyanydeez 4y ago
  He started none of those companies.
  - schiffern 4y ago
    I asked about head-ing, not start-ing. What corporate titles does someone need to "head" a company? Elon founded SpaceX. That fact is totally uncontroversial, even among critics.

btown 4y ago

https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/origin-stories/elon-musk https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/origin-stories/elon-musk is an essential read about Musk's first company Zip2, whose $307 million payday in 1999 set off his ability to be one of the first funders (and only retroactively a founder) of X.com which would become Paypal. His work at Zip2 was incredibly consistent with his pattern: a person with visionary ideas, an effective prototyper, an incredible ability to sell with smoke and mirrors... but only successful in business to the extent his companies are protected from him: > ...in early 1996 the firm Mohr Davidow Ventures invested $3 million into the company, on the condition that Musk hand over most of his shares and cede operational control to a seasoned tech executive named Rich Sorkin. Musk was demoted to Chief Technology Officer, and not surprisingly, he hated to see someone else run his own business. But he needed the money to take Zip2 to the next level, so he took the deal. > The new programmers found that they needed to rewrite most of the software, to make it more efficient. Musk’s DIY approach to coding didn’t include chunking, so he inadvertently created a “hairball”: a tangled mess of code that’s nearly impossible to unravel if anything goes wrong. > Often he would re-write his programmers’ code after they left work at the end of the day, without telling them of the changes. He was also prone to micro-managing and rudely criticizing his team. Needless to say, they found him difficult to work with. But Zip2 became vital to the online transition for traditional newspapers and other media. Right place, right time, Musk being actively managed from the very beginning. But he's incapable of recognizing now that he needs that support system.