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> Peter Thiel would be a nobody if PayPal failed. Maybe for Peter (I don't know) but not for Musk. He did X/PayPal, but then blew everyone away with Tesla, cru

> Peter Thiel would be a nobody if PayPal failed. Maybe for Peter (I don't know) but not for Musk. He did X/PayPal, but then blew everyone away with Tesla, crushed it with SpaceX, succeeds with Starlink... Some people really do have something that is more than just getting lucky once.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
There is something to it. As someone, who shorted Tesla based on fundamentals ( it was back when I foolishly thought fundamentals matter more than emotion ), I can't help but wonder if he was less of who is and how he operates, under any other CEO, this would have been a clear case of Tesla going into bankruptcy. There is luck and there is this weird mix of skills that keep you going all the time.
- queuebert 2y ago
  He's smart enough to fool the masses that he's a genius scientist, but, as a scientist myself, he looks to me like a gifted manager and maybe a genius at hiring.
dangus 2y ago
He didn't start Tesla, he joined as an investor. He would not have the money to do so if PayPal failed. Musk has gotten wildly lucky many times, like when he was "gifted" a factory by the federal government in the wake of the 2008 automotive crisis. If the 2008 financial crisis never happened Tesla would not be a mass market manufacturer today. In an alternate timeline GM/Toyota would still be building the Pontiac Vibe and Corolla Matrix in Fremont. Musk has been hitching his businesses to government money ever since (SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Starlink) and I say that's a direct result of his astonishing success in getting cheap/free money for Tesla. And you don't convince the government to buy your products so easily unless you have a success story like Tesla's government investment under your belt. When you think about it this way his infiltration into the executive branch is a logical conclusion of his "genius" strategy. Now he can just tell the government to buy his products. It's the exact kind of thing that a middling manager with mediocre products would do rather than compete on quality and value.
- tejohnso 2y ago
  > He didn't start Tesla, he joined as an investor. Yeah, and then he took it over, and transformed it from a fledgling garage based company with near 0 market penetration into a serious competitor in the international automobile market, defying all the odds, keeping it alive when it should have gone bankrupt many times. I don't think a typical person who happens to have money is going to take on Ford, GM, Toyota and win the early EV game. I don't doubt that he has gotten wildly lucky many times, but I do doubt that there isn't something special there. I could get lucky many times...I'm not taking over industries beating Toyota, beating NASA, no matter how lucky I am. I don't have the vision, I don't have the drive, I don't have the obsessive focus that is sometimes necessary, I don't have the capital allocation skill, etc.
  - dangus 2y ago
    My point here is that the limiting factor wasn’t who was in charge, it was whether the company could acquire a large scale factory and have enough capital to start scaling. Tesla didn’t make any particular moves that required complexity of foresight or spectacular management wisdom. If the US government didn’t enable Tesla in the way it did, it would still be a garage company regardless of how good of a manager Elon was. I think it should also be explained why Elon is suddenly an objectively horrendous manager by the metrics of his own quarterly reports. Did he get hit in the head sometime recently? Does he have long covid? Why are Tesla sales declining by double digits when other brands and the EV market as a whole is growing rapidly? Why is Twitter’s advertising revenue and active user count (allegedly, it’s a private company) in rapid decline when neither was true before it was taken private? Has the Boring company delivered any successful projects? Why is xAI behind all of its competitors? Why is Starlink losing its 100 million dollar contract with Canada? Why did Elon invite 100% tariffs on his vehicles to Canada? If I were an investor I would be furious. The questions are piling up. My hypothesis is that his companies are not doing so well as of late because he was never a particularly gifted leader, and he’s letting his own hubris cloud his judgment. A most basically informed manager who just graduated with an MBA from a low-tier public university would know not to take public political stances that alienate their main customer base. Imagine if the CEO of Ford was walking around telling the press that people who buy big lifted trucks have small penises. That’s exactly what Elon has been doing with his electric vehicle brand. LeBron James isn’t the greatest basketball player of all time because he was good for a few years. He’s the greatest player of all time because he’s consistently good. If you had to pick one draft pick that you were stuck with for the next 10+ years he would be the unanimous pick. If Elon was only good at managing companies for ~10 years that just doesn’t establish much of a trend, and points directly to my hypothesis that he got a lucky break and was successful in spite of his own poor instincts and judgment.
thrance 2y ago
Read up on your history, X* failed miserably, it was so bad he was basically ousted from his own company. Later success came in spite of him. Same story for his previous and first venture, Zip2. He did not found Tesla, and arguably the company took a downturn since his takeover. Cars became unreliable and ugly (cybertruck...), and now that people are starting to associate the brand with Musk's terrible public image, sales are going down fast. The only positive was this irrationally inflated stock due to his cult following in the investor class. SpaceX is cool but received a lot of money from tax payers in the form of government contracts. And let's not mention The Boring Company, Hyperloop, Neuralink... That's the odd things with odds, with this many people on Earth, one of them was bound to get to the very top. And you don't get to the very top by working 100000x more, you get there by starting a millionaire and taking insane risks, then getting insanely lucky many times. * The first one, not Twitter. Although there's a story here too.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago

There is something to it. As someone, who shorted Tesla based on fundamentals ( it was back when I foolishly thought fundamentals matter more than emotion ), I can't help but wonder if he was less of who is and how he operates, under any other CEO, this would have been a clear case of Tesla going into bankruptcy. There is luck and there is this weird mix of skills that keep you going all the time.

queuebert 2y ago
He's smart enough to fool the masses that he's a genius scientist, but, as a scientist myself, he looks to me like a gifted manager and maybe a genius at hiring.

dangus 2y ago

He didn't start Tesla, he joined as an investor. He would not have the money to do so if PayPal failed. Musk has gotten wildly lucky many times, like when he was "gifted" a factory by the federal government in the wake of the 2008 automotive crisis. If the 2008 financial crisis never happened Tesla would not be a mass market manufacturer today. In an alternate timeline GM/Toyota would still be building the Pontiac Vibe and Corolla Matrix in Fremont. Musk has been hitching his businesses to government money ever since (SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Starlink) and I say that's a direct result of his astonishing success in getting cheap/free money for Tesla. And you don't convince the government to buy your products so easily unless you have a success story like Tesla's government investment under your belt. When you think about it this way his infiltration into the executive branch is a logical conclusion of his "genius" strategy. Now he can just tell the government to buy his products. It's the exact kind of thing that a middling manager with mediocre products would do rather than compete on quality and value.

tejohnso 2y ago
> He didn't start Tesla, he joined as an investor. Yeah, and then he took it over, and transformed it from a fledgling garage based company with near 0 market penetration into a serious competitor in the international automobile market, defying all the odds, keeping it alive when it should have gone bankrupt many times. I don't think a typical person who happens to have money is going to take on Ford, GM, Toyota and win the early EV game. I don't doubt that he has gotten wildly lucky many times, but I do doubt that there isn't something special there. I could get lucky many times...I'm not taking over industries beating Toyota, beating NASA, no matter how lucky I am. I don't have the vision, I don't have the drive, I don't have the obsessive focus that is sometimes necessary, I don't have the capital allocation skill, etc.
- dangus 2y ago
  My point here is that the limiting factor wasn’t who was in charge, it was whether the company could acquire a large scale factory and have enough capital to start scaling. Tesla didn’t make any particular moves that required complexity of foresight or spectacular management wisdom. If the US government didn’t enable Tesla in the way it did, it would still be a garage company regardless of how good of a manager Elon was. I think it should also be explained why Elon is suddenly an objectively horrendous manager by the metrics of his own quarterly reports. Did he get hit in the head sometime recently? Does he have long covid? Why are Tesla sales declining by double digits when other brands and the EV market as a whole is growing rapidly? Why is Twitter’s advertising revenue and active user count (allegedly, it’s a private company) in rapid decline when neither was true before it was taken private? Has the Boring company delivered any successful projects? Why is xAI behind all of its competitors? Why is Starlink losing its 100 million dollar contract with Canada? Why did Elon invite 100% tariffs on his vehicles to Canada? If I were an investor I would be furious. The questions are piling up. My hypothesis is that his companies are not doing so well as of late because he was never a particularly gifted leader, and he’s letting his own hubris cloud his judgment. A most basically informed manager who just graduated with an MBA from a low-tier public university would know not to take public political stances that alienate their main customer base. Imagine if the CEO of Ford was walking around telling the press that people who buy big lifted trucks have small penises. That’s exactly what Elon has been doing with his electric vehicle brand. LeBron James isn’t the greatest basketball player of all time because he was good for a few years. He’s the greatest player of all time because he’s consistently good. If you had to pick one draft pick that you were stuck with for the next 10+ years he would be the unanimous pick. If Elon was only good at managing companies for ~10 years that just doesn’t establish much of a trend, and points directly to my hypothesis that he got a lucky break and was successful in spite of his own poor instincts and judgment.

thrance 2y ago

Read up on your history, X* failed miserably, it was so bad he was basically ousted from his own company. Later success came in spite of him. Same story for his previous and first venture, Zip2. He did not found Tesla, and arguably the company took a downturn since his takeover. Cars became unreliable and ugly (cybertruck...), and now that people are starting to associate the brand with Musk's terrible public image, sales are going down fast. The only positive was this irrationally inflated stock due to his cult following in the investor class. SpaceX is cool but received a lot of money from tax payers in the form of government contracts. And let's not mention The Boring Company, Hyperloop, Neuralink... That's the odd things with odds, with this many people on Earth, one of them was bound to get to the very top. And you don't get to the very top by working 100000x more, you get there by starting a millionaire and taking insane risks, then getting insanely lucky many times. * The first one, not Twitter. Although there's a story here too.