Google started as an umpteenth search company on cheap machines and offered to sell out for one million, and Amazon started just by selling books from a website

Google started as an umpteenth search company on cheap machines and offered to sell out for one million, and Amazon started just by selling books from a website with buggy tech and workers kneeling on the floor to package the books. They both started at an easily accessible entry point too. But they each had a feasible path from humble to world-changing in a way that Elon maybe didn't going from online media and payments through a step function into disrupting transportation energy and yanking humanity into a spacefaring civilization. Even with, he was learning to get better at the game as he went along, and laying the foundation for SpaceX at the level of asking the rich questions, making the connections, and digging hard for elusive answers while he was still at x.com/PayPal. You probably always have to go through the foundation of exploring for the right questions to explore, to emerge with a meaningful advantage.