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> 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

> 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.
- tejohnso 2y ago
  > If the US government didn’t enable Tesla in the way it did, it would still be a garage company And if GM didn't receive a massive 50+ billion dollar bailout in 2008 it wouldn't exist now (new legal entity or not). Plenty of companies get government assistance. I don't think it diminishes Elon compared to say, the multiple GM CEOs around the time of the crash. > I think it should also be explained why Elon is suddenly an objectively horrendous manager ... why ... why ... why His priorities seem to have shifted from company to politics. I think he's letting his own hubris cloud his judgment as well. And he is into something else now. He definitely doesn't seem to be as focused on company performance anymore. > 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. That's a pretty direct insult to the primary customer base. What exactly are you talking about here? Did Elon say Teslas are not green and that people who buy Teslas are virtue signalling sycophants? > 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. We're talking 15 years since he took Tesla public and it took him over a year to get it there. It peaked late last year. And isn't Grok 3 competitive against GPT-4.5? Anyway, I don't think you get lucky for 15 years across multiple industries. I think what's more likely is maybe you start to go through something and it hurts your performance. Elon seems to have lost his way. But if he were to decide to take on some other industry and seems really motivated (and steps away from politics), I wouldn't bet against him.
  - dangus 2y ago
    All your GM example proves is that mediocre and below-average leadership gets propped up all the time, which reinforces my point rather than detracts from it. The hard part for Musk wasn’t to be innovative or be a great manager, the hard part was getting money from the government the first time. And that wasn’t anywhere near difficult in 2008 when the US government was throwing cash at automotive startups left and right via the ATVM program. While ATVM was known for other automotive startup failures it also led to the Nissan Leaf thanks to the battery plant in Tennessee, and it led to Ford’s EV and hybrid programs along with a turnaround. Most of the more established recipients of funding came out with positive results, and that includes Tesla, which was much further along than other smaller startups who received the loans. They got to develop the Model S on the cheap. I disagree that success in multiple industries is meaningful. My 401k is successful in every industry. Big whoop. Again, Elon’s companies with few exceptions all have a commonality of government contracts/assistance which all stems from Tesla’s unexpected success giving him a positive relationship with the government. Networking and capital, not strength of management. Survivorship bias, not excellence in management. He has never proved himself at turning around struggling companies like so many storied managers that I read about in business school, e.g., Steve Jobs. His most recent “turnaround story” is Twitter, buying a company and making it smaller while building the conditions for competitors to pick up marketshare (Threads, BlueSky, Reddit’s IPO and traffic explosion, and up next is Digg). Grok isn’t competitive with OpenAI because their revenue and customer list is a fraction of the size. They are squarely behind Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.

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.

tejohnso 2y ago
> If the US government didn’t enable Tesla in the way it did, it would still be a garage company And if GM didn't receive a massive 50+ billion dollar bailout in 2008 it wouldn't exist now (new legal entity or not). Plenty of companies get government assistance. I don't think it diminishes Elon compared to say, the multiple GM CEOs around the time of the crash. > I think it should also be explained why Elon is suddenly an objectively horrendous manager ... why ... why ... why His priorities seem to have shifted from company to politics. I think he's letting his own hubris cloud his judgment as well. And he is into something else now. He definitely doesn't seem to be as focused on company performance anymore. > 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. That's a pretty direct insult to the primary customer base. What exactly are you talking about here? Did Elon say Teslas are not green and that people who buy Teslas are virtue signalling sycophants? > 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. We're talking 15 years since he took Tesla public and it took him over a year to get it there. It peaked late last year. And isn't Grok 3 competitive against GPT-4.5? Anyway, I don't think you get lucky for 15 years across multiple industries. I think what's more likely is maybe you start to go through something and it hurts your performance. Elon seems to have lost his way. But if he were to decide to take on some other industry and seems really motivated (and steps away from politics), I wouldn't bet against him.
- dangus 2y ago
  All your GM example proves is that mediocre and below-average leadership gets propped up all the time, which reinforces my point rather than detracts from it. The hard part for Musk wasn’t to be innovative or be a great manager, the hard part was getting money from the government the first time. And that wasn’t anywhere near difficult in 2008 when the US government was throwing cash at automotive startups left and right via the ATVM program. While ATVM was known for other automotive startup failures it also led to the Nissan Leaf thanks to the battery plant in Tennessee, and it led to Ford’s EV and hybrid programs along with a turnaround. Most of the more established recipients of funding came out with positive results, and that includes Tesla, which was much further along than other smaller startups who received the loans. They got to develop the Model S on the cheap. I disagree that success in multiple industries is meaningful. My 401k is successful in every industry. Big whoop. Again, Elon’s companies with few exceptions all have a commonality of government contracts/assistance which all stems from Tesla’s unexpected success giving him a positive relationship with the government. Networking and capital, not strength of management. Survivorship bias, not excellence in management. He has never proved himself at turning around struggling companies like so many storied managers that I read about in business school, e.g., Steve Jobs. His most recent “turnaround story” is Twitter, buying a company and making it smaller while building the conditions for competitors to pick up marketshare (Threads, BlueSky, Reddit’s IPO and traffic explosion, and up next is Digg). Grok isn’t competitive with OpenAI because their revenue and customer list is a fraction of the size. They are squarely behind Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.