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Musk's success story is taking very bold bets almost flippantly. These things have a premium associates with them, because to most people they are so toxic that
by rich_sasha 10mo ago
Musk's success story is taking very bold bets almost flippantly. These things have a premium associates with them, because to most people they are so toxic that they would never consider them.
Every time when he has the choice to do something conservative or bold, he goes for the latter, and so long as he has a bit of luck, that is very much a winning strategy. To most people, I guess the stress of always betting everything on red would be unbearable. I mean, the guy got a $300m cash payout in 1999! Hands up who would keep working 100 hour weeks for 26 years after that.
I'm not saying it is either bad or good. He clearly did well out of it for himself financially. But I guess the whole cameras/lidar thing is similar. Because it's big, bold, from the outset unlikely to work, and it's a massive "fake it till you make it" thing.
But if he can crack it, again I guess he hits the jackpot. Never mind cars, they are expensive enough that Lidar cost is a rounding error. But if he can then stick 3d vision into any old cheap cameras, surely that is worth a lot. In fact wasn't this part of Tesla's great vision - to diversify away from cars and into robots etc. I'm sure the military would order thousands and millions of cheapo cameras that work 90% as well as a fancy Lidar - while being fully solid state etc.
That he is using his clients as lab rats for it is yet another reason why I'm not buying one. But to me this is totally in character for Musk.
- BrenBarn 10mo agoThe fact that he's able to fake it until he makes it is a failure of our society. He should be impoverished and incarcerated.
- randoglando 10mo agoHe's a complicated figure. He has done so much good as well. EVs in the US and reusable rockets owe a lot to him. OTOH, so does the cesspool that is X.
- cn-watch 10mo agoThere are no elon musk museums. There are no elon musk hospitals. There are no elon musk centers for unwed mothers. How could the richest man in the world give so little back.
- AnthonyMouse 10mo agoTraditionally those are the things that happen once someone retires and starts contemplating where their money should go after they die.
- Zigurd 10mo agoBill Gates is still kickin'. There are credible independent estimates that his funding has saved tens of millions of lives that would've been lost to malaria, AIDS, and other diseases. Effective altruism and other New Age garbage pseudo philosophy can't hold a candle to that.
- oska 10mo agoIn my opinion, one of the things that most reveals a person's biases and worldview is which tech oligarchs they revere and which they loathe To reveal my own bias / worldview, I loathe and detest Bill Gates in nearly every way and have done so for over three decades. I think he has had a massively negative impact on humanity, mainly by making the computer industry so shitty for 4+ decades but in other more controversial areas as well. With Elon Musk, while perceiving a number of big faults in the man, I also acknowledge that he has helped advance some very beneficial technologies (like electric vehicles and battery storage). So I have a mixed opinion on him, while with Gates, he is almost all evil and has had a massive negative impact on the planet.
- gitaarik 10mo agoIt rather reminds me of that Musk was obsessed with converting Paypal to run on Windows servers instead of Linux, and that he therefore finally got ousted by the other CEOs. Because he already had a big share in the company he made a lot of money. But he doesn't seem to be a clever engineer.