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Cue comments about how Elon Musk is doing so much more with his money than everyone else, and how SpaceX/Tesla Motors/SolarCity are so much more valuable than a

Cue comments about how Elon Musk is doing so much more with his money than everyone else, and how SpaceX/Tesla Motors/SolarCity are so much more valuable than anything else. Cue complaints about how no one works on hard problems any more, and that everyone is just chasing instagram/facebook/twitter/groupon/zynga/social/local/mobile. Forget that Elon Musk started an advertising/publishing company in 1995-1997, intelligently riding the bubble, and then created X.com (a more complex Mint.com), which he then merged with Confinity to create PayPal (from where he was essentially fired - unfortunately). Forget that battery tech wasn't useful enough until just over 5 years ago (not nearly dense/cheap enough), and how we needed the massive production increases in laptop battery production for Tesla to make sense. Also forget that NASA had 0 use for SpaceX until the Space Shuttle program was shutdown - which is curiously lined up with the COTS program. Also forget that Solar panels required massive production gains thanks to China which only occurred within the past 5 years. Finally, ignore the fact that he would never have been able to do anything without the money from a stupid email payments thing. Big problems are awesome. Little problems are better. Everyone starts small. Even Elon (a personal hero of mine and a man I deeply respect). Start on new small things, work hard, and TIME your entry/exit with extreme precision. Malcolm Gladwell says a lot of things which are "truthy", but his Outliers book was right on the money. "Big things have small beginnings" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB52xyaY4kk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB52xyaY4kk).

carbocation 14y ago
Your core message was pretty fantastic, and with a different tone it could be even better, and better received.
- confluence 14y ago
  Felt like I had to get it off my chest. My sincere apologies for the ranty tone everybody.
kiba 14y ago
Unimportant things just happen to have lower barrier for entry and higher tolerance for risk. If important things happen to have lower barrier than unimportant things, we'll see important things progress faster, especially combined with higher tolerance for failure. Failure in rocketry is often very costly, hence low tolerance of risk. This is also the same situation for healthcare. A drug that didn't pan out is a very costly failure. Both of them also requires lot of expertise and red tape on top of normal startup stress.
wissler 14y ago
Heaven forbid that someone complain that diabetes pump research is abysmally retarded due to government distortion of the free market. Heaven forbid that someone complain that longevity research is abysmally retarded due to the same thing. Etc. etc. People who whine that someone is noticing that things ought to be better than they are suffer from a total lack of vision.
- confluence 14y ago
  The sad thing is the free market is probably the main reason we have these distortions in the first place, but then again I digress (and I may just be wrong). The government is so easy to blame. It's almost too easy - like taking candy from a baby. What you state sounds like facile thinking mixed together with just the tiniest little bit of bullshit. > "If only, if only we got rid of those damn bureaucrats, we'd have free markets and lollipops for all!". But you know what the sad thing is, the truly sad thing? The people in the government have their own customers too, members of free market that elect them and pay for their service. Some more than others - it would seem. The real problem, it would appear, is that those in the government are too damn good at giving the free market exactly what it damn well wants - monopoly profits. Who exactly do you think paid for those restrictions? Think more carefully wissler. Your bias is showing. As is mine (or is it? I never quite know myself). > When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth. Steve Jobs - Interview in WIRED magazine (February 1996) - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Quotes http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Quotes. Things are more than just black and white. The world is no place for idealists and ideologues with clear cut ideas, and simple thoughts. No, no, it's much too messy a place for that.
  - lmm 14y ago
    >The sad thing is the free market is probably the main reason we have these distortions in the first place, but then again I digress (and I may just be wrong). Not the free market, but entrenched corporate interests. One of the most interesting results from economics in recent years is that in any field where the top four players have a combined marketshare of over 60%, they will act like a cartel. Free markets are good at solving many problems, but free doesn't mean unregulated; it takes serious government intervention to prevent monopolies taking over and maintain a free market in the economists' sense.

carbocation 14y ago

Your core message was pretty fantastic, and with a different tone it could be even better, and better received.

confluence 14y ago
Felt like I had to get it off my chest. My sincere apologies for the ranty tone everybody.

kiba 14y ago

Unimportant things just happen to have lower barrier for entry and higher tolerance for risk. If important things happen to have lower barrier than unimportant things, we'll see important things progress faster, especially combined with higher tolerance for failure. Failure in rocketry is often very costly, hence low tolerance of risk. This is also the same situation for healthcare. A drug that didn't pan out is a very costly failure. Both of them also requires lot of expertise and red tape on top of normal startup stress.

wissler 14y ago

Heaven forbid that someone complain that diabetes pump research is abysmally retarded due to government distortion of the free market. Heaven forbid that someone complain that longevity research is abysmally retarded due to the same thing. Etc. etc. People who whine that someone is noticing that things ought to be better than they are suffer from a total lack of vision.

confluence 14y ago
The sad thing is the free market is probably the main reason we have these distortions in the first place, but then again I digress (and I may just be wrong). The government is so easy to blame. It's almost too easy - like taking candy from a baby. What you state sounds like facile thinking mixed together with just the tiniest little bit of bullshit. > "If only, if only we got rid of those damn bureaucrats, we'd have free markets and lollipops for all!". But you know what the sad thing is, the truly sad thing? The people in the government have their own customers too, members of free market that elect them and pay for their service. Some more than others - it would seem. The real problem, it would appear, is that those in the government are too damn good at giving the free market exactly what it damn well wants - monopoly profits. Who exactly do you think paid for those restrictions? Think more carefully wissler. Your bias is showing. As is mine (or is it? I never quite know myself). > When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth. Steve Jobs - Interview in WIRED magazine (February 1996) - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Quotes http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Quotes. Things are more than just black and white. The world is no place for idealists and ideologues with clear cut ideas, and simple thoughts. No, no, it's much too messy a place for that.
- lmm 14y ago
  >The sad thing is the free market is probably the main reason we have these distortions in the first place, but then again I digress (and I may just be wrong). Not the free market, but entrenched corporate interests. One of the most interesting results from economics in recent years is that in any field where the top four players have a combined marketshare of over 60%, they will act like a cartel. Free markets are good at solving many problems, but free doesn't mean unregulated; it takes serious government intervention to prevent monopolies taking over and maintain a free market in the economists' sense.