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I don't know how someone could look at Dorsey/Musk/Bezos actions and still be interested in what they have to say. There's probably a lot to be learned from som

I don't know how someone could look at Dorsey/Musk/Bezos actions and still be interested in what they have to say. There's probably a lot to be learned from someone who worships money, assuming that your goal is to emulate them. However their lifestyle and ideology is inherently dangerous to workers and life on earth as we know it. So yeah I don't really care what they have to say beyond knowing how the enemy views the average citizen (hint: it's not very positively).

throw5959 2y ago
What other person started a rocket company from scratch and got them landing? Of course I want to hear everything he says. Yes, he's crazy - seems to be a requirement if you want to do such stuff. Doesn't mean I will ignore it. I can think for myself, it's not like I take everything at face value. All that to say, perhaps other people don't prioritize values like you do. The technical excellence that companies repeatedly achieved under Musk is incredible.
- boxed 2y ago
  It's so sad that the current culture wants to judge peoples life based on the worst they've ever done. Yea, Musk is a troll online, but his success as a business/tech leader is something you can only doubt by donning the proverbial tin foil hat.
  - wormlord 2y ago
    I care less about his "troll" posts online (implying there is a conspiracy of jews importing people to destroy America is just a troll and not an actual Nazi conspiracy guys) than his manipulation of the US government, mistreatment of workers, and maybe the most egregious of all, being a fake nerd and pretending to like Evangelion.
    - whamlastxmas 2y ago
      Are you as militant about dunking on the million other people who also manipulate the government and mistreat workers to an even greater extent?
      - wormlord 2y ago
        Yes.
    - boxed 2y ago
      Ah yes, the rocket guy must be a fake nerd, and that's much worse than mistreating human beings. No flaw in that logic at all.
      - wormlord 2y ago
        It was a joke.
- ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
  Maybe, maybe not. Importantly, the parent didn't call him "crazy", they simply pointed out that he is hostile to workers. It's sad that people can see a good thing and think it cancels out all bad things.
  - throw5959 2y ago
    I called him crazy myself (and I do think it's true), to illustrate that I am aware of his antics and it's not a reason to stop listening.
    - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
      Right, but you replied to the parent, not yourself, and the parent didn't call him "crazy", they simply pointed out that he is hostile to workers (he is). It's sad that people can see a good thing and think it cancels out all bad things
      - throw5959 2y ago
        I'm trying to say that it doesn't cancel but that doesn't mean I won't listen.
- wormlord 2y ago
  > What other person started a rocket company from scratch and got them landing? I'd rather listen to Lars Blackmore (the engineer who is largely responsible for SpaceX powered descent). Or Gwynne Shotwell who actually oversees the business day-to-day. I'm really not interested in what the money guy has to say, especially since he is primarily interested in cultivating his public image-- how can you trust anything he says? The dude pays people to play a videogame for him 24/7 so he can pretend he is the best player in the world. That's not a metaphor -- he actually does that. https://www.vulture.com/article/fake-gamer-was-elon-musk-cheating-at-path-of-exile-2.html https://www.vulture.com/article/fake-gamer-was-elon-musk-che...
  - throw5959 2y ago
    Sure, I'm not saying Musk is the only person who has interesting things to say about it. You're absolutely correct about these other people and I listen to them too. But you're not giving Musk enough credit. All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit, and what is interesting here is that he went and made it happen anyways. I'm not talking just about the engineering, everything is interesting here - the project management, the hiring, the investments, the business side... Musk has a lot of input and influence in all of these, he was the one who decided and paid for it.
    - wormlord 2y ago
      > All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit Every company has some kind of mythology where someone says "you'll never make it in this town!". The reality is that uncrewed propulsive landing was technologically feasible since the soviets landed a rover on the moon. NASA propulsively landed a rover on Mars back in 2011. Like I said, listening to billionaires is probably interesting if your goal is "acquire boatloads of money". But we already know how to do that. 1. Appear confident 2. Lie 3. Have no morals or ethics 4. Prioritize the pursuit of power above all else
      - throw5959 2y ago
        Sorry but no, this is absolutely not what happened. I am watching it closely ever since SpaceX was founded in 2002. There is an incredible gap between the tech demo you're speaking about, and actually landing a heavy orbital rocket, and then doing it 100 times in a row without a hiccup. Mars is completely off topic, as they didn't land the booster there. We had Space Shuttle before and it didn't say much about landing rocket boosters.
- _shantaram 2y ago
  McDonnell Douglas seems to have gotten it done, from a quick skim of [1]. It appears they ran out of funding and the program was cancelled. According to the same article, > Elon Musk stated that the SpaceX Falcon 9 development was "... continuing the great work of the DC-X project." So... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
MattGaiser 2y ago
It is exactly that. Americans think of themselves as temporarily poor and embarrassed millionaires.
- linksnapzz 2y ago
  Conversely, Canadians can manage to sound hardscrabble and oppressed even when living in $2million+ houses in Kitchener.
hshshshshsh 2y ago
Sorry. When I look at Musk I see self landing rockets, electric cars , star link etc. Obviously he seems to be quite close to truth since without getting close to reality you can't do any of these since Physics is brutal and does not reward any false assumptions. So that gives me a sense that Musk is much closer to truth than most people out there. What am I missing?
- jamespo 2y ago
  What inventors are you interested in that aren't billionaires?
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    Not many. I grew up in a developing country so making money and getting out of low middle class has always been on my mind since childhood. So I don't have much interest in inventors that remains poor. Though I love Feynman if you count him as an inventor. Funny enough PayPal helped me make my first income by doing a remote job when I was in school.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- isodev 2y ago
  > I see self landing rockets, electric cars , star link etc You mean brilliant people were able to achieve this despite him? I don't see why this CEO should be the one taking credit for such achievements. In fact, I believe we would probably be further into the “Space Age” if it weren't for the lost decade since he appeared on TV.
  - hshshshshsh 2y ago
    Are you saying without Musk involvement these companies would have been even better performing? Like how did you do that calculation? Seems almost impossible to me how one can simulate that.
  - whamlastxmas 2y ago
duxup 2y ago
I'm not a big conference goer so my sample rate is not super high, but I've seen zero keynote speakers with something I cared to listen to. Regardless of their ideology ... I'm just not getting much out of those kinds of speakers. I'll tell a little story: I worked at a company with like 1k employees. Good company as far as I knew, as much as such a company can be. I work the night shift (tech support) and I'm young so I go to the company wide meeting in person because I'm curious and honestly don't have much to do. CEO talks, nothing of interest is said. I go back to my desk and get my things and I'm really tired and I'm in the elevator heading home. CEO steps in. Smiles and introduces himself and says "What did you think?" I'm really tired, so I say something like "It was ok I guess, it's just not my kinda event. Stuff I really want to know I don't think can be said at an event like that..." Other folks in the elevator (including my boss's boss who I didn't notice) look kinda horrified. CEO looks at me and pauses for a minute: "Yeah I get it..." And that was the truth of it ... there's nothing for those folks to say that they can say that I would want to know. I want the nitty gritty, not some pie in the sky stuff.
- remram 2y ago
  Yeah the keynote format is really weird. It's more about getting people inspired and hiping your company than talking about anything. I understand it when it's someone important in the community, but I think the "invited keynote" is a monstrosity that makes no sense and was invented at the behest of sponsors.
  - duxup 2y ago
    >It's more about getting people inspired and hiping your company than talking about anything. If they did the Developers, Developers, Developers speech every time ... that would work for me. If only out of amazement.
Thorrez 2y ago
Elon Musk is concerned about climate change, and created Telsa to lead the migration to electric cars to help combat climate change. That seems like a positive impact to life on earth.
- Aeolos 2y ago
  > Elon Musk [...] created Tesla Elon Musk did not found Tesla, and most definitely did not did it for environmental reasons. "Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors." [1] "If, I don’t know, 50 to 100 years from now, we’re mostly sustainable. I think that’ll probably be okay. So it’s not like the house is on fire immediately. [...] "The risk is not as high as a lot of people say it is with respect to global warming." [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc. [2] https://turboscribe.ai/transcript/share/4422534834081521519/HWE18owsC2u8E5u2HpZNikyBdermlV2YSwGlTEPKJJw/donald-trump-and-elon-musk-full-transcript-august-12-2024-https-x-com-i-spaces-1nakepnklwoxl https://turboscribe.ai/transcript/share/4422534834081521519/...
  - Thorrez 2y ago
    Thanks for the clarification about founding. But he joined as chair of the board when the company was less than 1 year old, and helped develop their first car. >and most definitely did not did it for environmental reasons. From that same link, he says one of the goals of Tesla is to make environmentalism cool: > And so you get the solar power, mind that with batteries. So because obviously the sun doesn't shine at night and then you use that to charge the electric cars and you have a long-term sustainable solution. > And, you know, that's what Tesla is trying to move things towards. And I think we've made a lot of progress in that regard. But when you look at our cars, like we don't believe that environmentalism, that caring about the environment should mean that you have to suffer. > So we make sure that our cars are beautiful, that they drive well, that they're fast, they're, you know, sexy. I mean, they're cool. Here he says the purpose for him working on electric cars is to transition people to sustainable transport: https://youtu.be/SNIaHc0Uggs?si=ELivf9xj2J3PS8Wi&t=304 https://youtu.be/SNIaHc0Uggs?si=ELivf9xj2J3PS8Wi&t=304
  - 2y ago
scotty79 2y ago
I think what they have to say is uninteresting for a very different reason. The owe very little of what they own to what they actually think and do. They just managed to keep on top of a huge commercial organism which development and almost cancerous growth has been dictated more by the environment it grew in and sheer chance than any single human opinions and choices. By every possible individual measurement they are no further from average than a standard deviation. There are many more unique and interesting people. That feat of staying on top of self-inflating balloon is their only claim to fame. So they might have interesting things to say about how to backstab and exploit and avoid getting dethroned but that's all. Unfortunately that's what not they happily share.
- wormlord 2y ago
  That too. These people aren't exceptional in interesting ways, they are however exceptionally optimized for one kind of success (getting that dolla dolla bill) in a zero interest rate tech environment. Turns out that being a good con man is the optimal way to do that, but then why would I want to listen to a con man?
buzzert 2y ago
> However their lifestyle and ideology is inherently dangerous to workers and life on earth as we know it. Wait until you hear about China.

throw5959 2y ago

What other person started a rocket company from scratch and got them landing? Of course I want to hear everything he says. Yes, he's crazy - seems to be a requirement if you want to do such stuff. Doesn't mean I will ignore it. I can think for myself, it's not like I take everything at face value. All that to say, perhaps other people don't prioritize values like you do. The technical excellence that companies repeatedly achieved under Musk is incredible.

boxed 2y ago
It's so sad that the current culture wants to judge peoples life based on the worst they've ever done. Yea, Musk is a troll online, but his success as a business/tech leader is something you can only doubt by donning the proverbial tin foil hat.
- wormlord 2y ago
  I care less about his "troll" posts online (implying there is a conspiracy of jews importing people to destroy America is just a troll and not an actual Nazi conspiracy guys) than his manipulation of the US government, mistreatment of workers, and maybe the most egregious of all, being a fake nerd and pretending to like Evangelion.
  - whamlastxmas 2y ago
    Are you as militant about dunking on the million other people who also manipulate the government and mistreat workers to an even greater extent?
    - wormlord 2y ago
      Yes.
  - boxed 2y ago
    Ah yes, the rocket guy must be a fake nerd, and that's much worse than mistreating human beings. No flaw in that logic at all.
    - wormlord 2y ago
      It was a joke.
ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
Maybe, maybe not. Importantly, the parent didn't call him "crazy", they simply pointed out that he is hostile to workers. It's sad that people can see a good thing and think it cancels out all bad things.
- throw5959 2y ago
  I called him crazy myself (and I do think it's true), to illustrate that I am aware of his antics and it's not a reason to stop listening.
  - ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
    Right, but you replied to the parent, not yourself, and the parent didn't call him "crazy", they simply pointed out that he is hostile to workers (he is). It's sad that people can see a good thing and think it cancels out all bad things
    - throw5959 2y ago
      I'm trying to say that it doesn't cancel but that doesn't mean I won't listen.
wormlord 2y ago
> What other person started a rocket company from scratch and got them landing? I'd rather listen to Lars Blackmore (the engineer who is largely responsible for SpaceX powered descent). Or Gwynne Shotwell who actually oversees the business day-to-day. I'm really not interested in what the money guy has to say, especially since he is primarily interested in cultivating his public image-- how can you trust anything he says? The dude pays people to play a videogame for him 24/7 so he can pretend he is the best player in the world. That's not a metaphor -- he actually does that. https://www.vulture.com/article/fake-gamer-was-elon-musk-cheating-at-path-of-exile-2.html https://www.vulture.com/article/fake-gamer-was-elon-musk-che...
- throw5959 2y ago
  Sure, I'm not saying Musk is the only person who has interesting things to say about it. You're absolutely correct about these other people and I listen to them too. But you're not giving Musk enough credit. All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit, and what is interesting here is that he went and made it happen anyways. I'm not talking just about the engineering, everything is interesting here - the project management, the hiring, the investments, the business side... Musk has a lot of input and influence in all of these, he was the one who decided and paid for it.
  - wormlord 2y ago
    > All engineers and other professionals told him that landing rockets is bullshit Every company has some kind of mythology where someone says "you'll never make it in this town!". The reality is that uncrewed propulsive landing was technologically feasible since the soviets landed a rover on the moon. NASA propulsively landed a rover on Mars back in 2011. Like I said, listening to billionaires is probably interesting if your goal is "acquire boatloads of money". But we already know how to do that. 1. Appear confident 2. Lie 3. Have no morals or ethics 4. Prioritize the pursuit of power above all else
    - throw5959 2y ago
      Sorry but no, this is absolutely not what happened. I am watching it closely ever since SpaceX was founded in 2002. There is an incredible gap between the tech demo you're speaking about, and actually landing a heavy orbital rocket, and then doing it 100 times in a row without a hiccup. Mars is completely off topic, as they didn't land the booster there. We had Space Shuttle before and it didn't say much about landing rocket boosters.
_shantaram 2y ago
McDonnell Douglas seems to have gotten it done, from a quick skim of [1]. It appears they ran out of funding and the program was cancelled. According to the same article, > Elon Musk stated that the SpaceX Falcon 9 development was "... continuing the great work of the DC-X project." So... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

MattGaiser 2y ago

It is exactly that. Americans think of themselves as temporarily poor and embarrassed millionaires.

linksnapzz 2y ago
Conversely, Canadians can manage to sound hardscrabble and oppressed even when living in $2million+ houses in Kitchener.

hshshshshsh 2y ago

Sorry. When I look at Musk I see self landing rockets, electric cars , star link etc. Obviously he seems to be quite close to truth since without getting close to reality you can't do any of these since Physics is brutal and does not reward any false assumptions. So that gives me a sense that Musk is much closer to truth than most people out there. What am I missing?

jamespo 2y ago
What inventors are you interested in that aren't billionaires?
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  Not many. I grew up in a developing country so making money and getting out of low middle class has always been on my mind since childhood. So I don't have much interest in inventors that remains poor. Though I love Feynman if you count him as an inventor. Funny enough PayPal helped me make my first income by doing a remote job when I was in school.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
isodev 2y ago
> I see self landing rockets, electric cars , star link etc You mean brilliant people were able to achieve this despite him? I don't see why this CEO should be the one taking credit for such achievements. In fact, I believe we would probably be further into the “Space Age” if it weren't for the lost decade since he appeared on TV.
- hshshshshsh 2y ago
  Are you saying without Musk involvement these companies would have been even better performing? Like how did you do that calculation? Seems almost impossible to me how one can simulate that.
- whamlastxmas 2y ago

duxup 2y ago

I'm not a big conference goer so my sample rate is not super high, but I've seen zero keynote speakers with something I cared to listen to. Regardless of their ideology ... I'm just not getting much out of those kinds of speakers. I'll tell a little story: I worked at a company with like 1k employees. Good company as far as I knew, as much as such a company can be. I work the night shift (tech support) and I'm young so I go to the company wide meeting in person because I'm curious and honestly don't have much to do. CEO talks, nothing of interest is said. I go back to my desk and get my things and I'm really tired and I'm in the elevator heading home. CEO steps in. Smiles and introduces himself and says "What did you think?" I'm really tired, so I say something like "It was ok I guess, it's just not my kinda event. Stuff I really want to know I don't think can be said at an event like that..." Other folks in the elevator (including my boss's boss who I didn't notice) look kinda horrified. CEO looks at me and pauses for a minute: "Yeah I get it..." And that was the truth of it ... there's nothing for those folks to say that they can say that I would want to know. I want the nitty gritty, not some pie in the sky stuff.

remram 2y ago
Yeah the keynote format is really weird. It's more about getting people inspired and hiping your company than talking about anything. I understand it when it's someone important in the community, but I think the "invited keynote" is a monstrosity that makes no sense and was invented at the behest of sponsors.
- duxup 2y ago
  >It's more about getting people inspired and hiping your company than talking about anything. If they did the Developers, Developers, Developers speech every time ... that would work for me. If only out of amazement.

Thorrez 2y ago

Elon Musk is concerned about climate change, and created Telsa to lead the migration to electric cars to help combat climate change. That seems like a positive impact to life on earth.

Aeolos 2y ago
> Elon Musk [...] created Tesla Elon Musk did not found Tesla, and most definitely did not did it for environmental reasons. "Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors." [1] "If, I don’t know, 50 to 100 years from now, we’re mostly sustainable. I think that’ll probably be okay. So it’s not like the house is on fire immediately. [...] "The risk is not as high as a lot of people say it is with respect to global warming." [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc. [2] https://turboscribe.ai/transcript/share/4422534834081521519/HWE18owsC2u8E5u2HpZNikyBdermlV2YSwGlTEPKJJw/donald-trump-and-elon-musk-full-transcript-august-12-2024-https-x-com-i-spaces-1nakepnklwoxl https://turboscribe.ai/transcript/share/4422534834081521519/...
- Thorrez 2y ago
  Thanks for the clarification about founding. But he joined as chair of the board when the company was less than 1 year old, and helped develop their first car. >and most definitely did not did it for environmental reasons. From that same link, he says one of the goals of Tesla is to make environmentalism cool: > And so you get the solar power, mind that with batteries. So because obviously the sun doesn't shine at night and then you use that to charge the electric cars and you have a long-term sustainable solution. > And, you know, that's what Tesla is trying to move things towards. And I think we've made a lot of progress in that regard. But when you look at our cars, like we don't believe that environmentalism, that caring about the environment should mean that you have to suffer. > So we make sure that our cars are beautiful, that they drive well, that they're fast, they're, you know, sexy. I mean, they're cool. Here he says the purpose for him working on electric cars is to transition people to sustainable transport: https://youtu.be/SNIaHc0Uggs?si=ELivf9xj2J3PS8Wi&t=304 https://youtu.be/SNIaHc0Uggs?si=ELivf9xj2J3PS8Wi&t=304
- 2y ago

scotty79 2y ago

I think what they have to say is uninteresting for a very different reason. The owe very little of what they own to what they actually think and do. They just managed to keep on top of a huge commercial organism which development and almost cancerous growth has been dictated more by the environment it grew in and sheer chance than any single human opinions and choices. By every possible individual measurement they are no further from average than a standard deviation. There are many more unique and interesting people. That feat of staying on top of self-inflating balloon is their only claim to fame. So they might have interesting things to say about how to backstab and exploit and avoid getting dethroned but that's all. Unfortunately that's what not they happily share.

wormlord 2y ago
That too. These people aren't exceptional in interesting ways, they are however exceptionally optimized for one kind of success (getting that dolla dolla bill) in a zero interest rate tech environment. Turns out that being a good con man is the optimal way to do that, but then why would I want to listen to a con man?

buzzert 2y ago

> However their lifestyle and ideology is inherently dangerous to workers and life on earth as we know it. Wait until you hear about China.