9 ms·

This post reminds me of that old joke: Husband: I am the head of the household! I determine our family's position on all of the major economic, political, and

• unreal37 14y ago
  Having not been able to maintain my own marriage, I think its more complicated than that. But the quality Musk has that almost no one in his position has is the willingness to risk it all for the dream. Musk himself almost went broke on SpaceX and Tesla. Most billionaires are into preservation of capital in a big way.
  • JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    That. Why do so few people win 7 in a row in craps? Becausethe odds are against you. Most don't get rich by risking it all. Of those that do, 1 in a million 'make it work' i.e. get lucky.
  • jessriedel 14y ago
    > Most billionaires are into preservation of capital in a big way. This is surprising to me from a behavioral economics stand point. Seems like billionaires would know they've very nearly maxed out their utility function in terms of material stuff. I'd think it would be very worth it to them to risk a billion dollars (which, remember, is something like the cumulative life's work of a thousand human beings) on mere personal glory or hubris. Are you speaking from personal experience, or is there some conventional wisdom or data I should know about?
    • danielweber 14y ago
      I read somewhere (can't remember where) that according to people who measure happiness, one of the most unhappy things that can happen to you is to have a lot of money and then lose it. It seems weird to people who haven't gone through it, but there you go.
    • unreal37 14y ago
      I would suggest if you look at a sampling of billionaires (like Sam Walton's children who own Walmart), or any other high profile billionaire on Forbes list, they are actually pretty content earning 1-2% a year on that money. Even young Mark Zuckerberg would not take the money he made on Facebook and turn around and start a company where he could lose 66% of his fortune if it didn't work out. Most serial entrepreneurs work on borrowed money after the first exit, or only invest a small part of their wealth on the next one. Even Warren Buffet, who is renowned as an investor and sometimes a wild speculator (like trying to corner the silver market), won't risk more than a small percentage of his wealth/Berkshire on a risky investment. Elon Musk made $160MM on Paypal, invested $100MM of his own money in SpaceX which was an all or nothing bet. And the rest $60MM in Tesla (and a divorce), and in 2010 had to borrow money from friends to live on. That's guts! And believing in yourself!
  • loganfrederick 14y ago
    "Most billionaires are into preservation of capital in a big way." Depending on how you define "are into", this could be argued as empirically wrong. A study done by the editor of the updated edition of Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" shows that the Forbes 400 (400 Richest Americans) only had 68 members who stayed on the list from some time in the 1980 to the early 2000s. The author calculated the return required to stay on the list and it was approximately 4.8% annually, which is very reasonable with their level of resources. Due to these results (only 68 out of 400 richest people staying in that position), you could say that billionaires are NOT into preservation of capital, when making 4% annually is not even accomplished. The hypothesized reason for these results is that most billionaire's fortunes are tied to one or two major companies/investments. Fluctuations in business over time eventually devalue their investment in the single entity. If they really cared about "preservation of capital", they would liquidate more of their stakes when one company made them rich then diversify their holdings. Apologies for the vague dates. I am at work and do not have the book handy, but just read that passage 48 hours ago. If someone replies that they want more specific numbers and references, I can update this post in 10 hours. Reference: http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Book-Practical-Counsel/dp/B0002X1JKU http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Book-Practical-Co...
    • jessriedel 14y ago
      Hey this is really interesting. Thanks very much for posting this.
    • TheCoelacanth 14y ago
      > If they really cared about "preservation of capital", they would liquidate more of their stakes when one company made them rich then diversify their holdings. That might not always be possible. If the shares they own are a substantial portion of the total company, selling a lot of them at once would cause the share price to plummet and a lot of their wealth would disappear. Most of them do sell off stock in the companies that made them rich, they just do it gradually, so that they don't cause the price to drop. For instance, Bill Gates has been dumping Microsoft stock for several years. The stock he sold in the past few years amounts to about 3% of all of Microsoft.
• barredo 14y ago
  A good marriage can be way more complicated than putting rockets into space.
  • pdenya 14y ago
    To be fair a lot more people have figured out how to have a good marriage than how to put rockets into space.
    • barredo 14y ago
      Yes, but a lot more of people marry than try to put rockets into space! Also, it's not like Elon its doing all the math and engineering, he has people that does that for him, which is the hardest thing in the putting-rockets-into-space business
      • nickpinkston 14y ago
        The "math and engineering" aren't the hard parts. Few people can raise that kind of money, form that kind of vision and try to compete in that kind of race. Low level engineering is important, but there's a reason the other rocket companies (Scaled Composited) aren't heard about nearly as much or doing nearly as impressive of things.
• Me1000 14y ago
  Are we really going to start analyzing a man's marriage now? This is not a tabloid. :/
  • untog 14y ago
    I agree with your sentiment but I'm actually kind of conflicted. Inspecting into his marriage feels dirty and indeed, tabloid. But if we want to get the full picture of entrepreneurial life, we can't ignore personal life. If you want to be the next Elon Musk it is probably worth noting that his marriage failed- if nothing else, just to remind you that even when you're a billionaire it is very difficult to have it all.
    • travisp 14y ago
      But, relationships are very personal and private. It is very difficult to know enough details about the people involved and their relationship with one another to draw any real conclusions from the simple failure of a relationship.
      • vanderZwan 14y ago
        > But, relationships are very personal and private. I'm not going to disagree on this being a private issue, but if we're talking about why billionaires do not share Elon Musk's personality, doesn't it make perfect sense to discuss things like this?
        • travisp 14y ago
          I don't mean private in the sense that we shouldn't discuss them, I mean private in the sense that the actual details of the relationship occur in private and that we don't know them. It is very hard to judge a relationship from the outside because a lot of what goes on in a relationship is private: private conversations and communication, the way a person expresses love or likes to be shown that they are loved, the way romantic conflicts are handled, what initially attracted a couple to each other, minor quirks and eccentricities, pet peeves, sexual compatibility, changes in personality and values, and so on. I don't think we really know most of these things about Elon Musk's marriage, and I would be hesitant to draw broad conclusions without them.
• timjahn 14y ago
  > Maybe the answer to OP's question is, "Because many who could dream and do like Elon Musk would rather focus on the "little things" like life, love, and family. I don't want to generalize but I feel this extremely non-trivial notion is often overlooked in this community. Couldn't upvote you enough here.
  • psweber 14y ago
    Plenty of people prioritize work over family. It's non-trivial, but it's only a (very small) part of the answer to this question.
• qzxt 14y ago
  I think people who hype on and on about his personal life are just grasping at straws to mask their own insecurities. As someone who grew up not spending that cliched ooey gooey version of "family time" that we always see on television and someone who has been married once, I'm fairly sure it's a lot more complicated than "oh always working, and doesn't care about his family? --insert underhanded "I'm better than you statement here"--. My parents worked hard to take care of me and my sisters. Did I see them all the time? nope. Was I bothered? nope. At the end of the day whenever I needed them they would drop everything and show up. We never had dinner at the table, as a matter of fact I pretty much up and moved out when i was 17. But we're a very close family. As for my marriage, despite how hard we tried to maintain it, one can't control feelings, and eventually we realized that even though we were comfortable with each other, we couldn't get those feelings back. Now, I don't know Elon Musk, and quite frankly I think there's a bit too much hero worship surrounding him - don't get me wrong, he does some crazy stuff, but he's not as much a sage entrepreneur as we make him out to be. Having said that, the reality is that life is a lot more complicated than what it looks like on Little House on the Prairie. A "close family" doesn't have to sit around the table and chat, a close family doesn't even have to have members who live in the same country - I'm a case in point. So people talking about how he's some bad father as if they live with him or know him personally should go focus on their own personal lives. And to John Battelle's, quite frankly rude statement at SXSW, well he works at a media company that hosts conferences, not running and re-imagining two pillars of heavy industry.
  • Ixiaus 14y ago
    This sentiment, exactly - although I will say our family lives are probably pretty rare. My father was/is a successful lawyer and my mom had her own thing going for quite some time as a painter so I rarely ever "saw them". Whenever it was important though they were there, present, non-judgemental, and loving. He does have too much hero worship going on - the example in the article of Bill Gates proves this. Bill is maintaining a healthy family life (as far as one can tell that doesn't know him or his family) and he's doing "sci-fi s$#t" (thorium reactors? curing malaria? MICROSOFT!?!). Judging billionaires is silly - if the OP thinks there needs to be more Elon Musks in the world then he should be working on it. I personally don't think we need more of any person in the world; they are all fitting in precisely where they should be.
• Egregore 14y ago
  What's more importing preserving a marriage or flying to Mars?
  • jordan0day 14y ago
    What a horrible, horrible false dichotomy.
  • gazrogers 14y ago
    If you're their kids, I'm pretty sure the marriage comes out on top.
    • ry0ohki 14y ago
      I don't know, as a child of divorce, I think having a dad who pioneered flight to Mars would be better then my parents staying in an unhappy relationship.
      • ArtB 14y ago
        But is it better than your dad not going to Mars and instead being able to work on your parents marriage? -Also a child of divorce
        • ry0ohki 14y ago
          I guess there is no way to tell, since I'm not sure how dramatically that would have affected me. But since my life turned out pretty great despite of the divorce, I think Dad going to Mars would only make it that much sweeter.
    • deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
• wilfra 14y ago
  Probably a conscious decision on his part, especially considering he named his company after Nikola Tesla: http://i.imgur.com/c51LLjM.png http://i.imgur.com/c51LLjM.png
• largesse 14y ago
  > As much as I admire the dreams and accomplishments of Elon Musk, I have trouble getting past the idea that he failed to maintain his marriage It takes two to tango. Maintaining a marriage is under no one person's control.
• noonespecial 14y ago
  Here's an interesting question: Suppose there's a guy who by sacrificing his family life (I mean really rotten here, messy divorce, kids hate him etc) could bring us electric cars, private space travel, and other "good for the many"s. Would you want him to? Would you be that guy?
• ryankshaw 14y ago
  actually your rebuttal is a little flawed. the OP is not asking "why isn't there more Elon Musks vs happy husbands & dads" he's asking "there are a lot of billionaires in the world, why dont more of them do great things instead of (insert capitalistic/extractionary/1% vs 99%/evil thing here)?" Although he is a sample size of 1 I'm betting that Elon's family life is not much different than other billionaires. but I'm betting most of the damage came from the rough road of making that first billion. You're right, becoming rich or famous probably involves a decision at some point of prioritizing that over the "small things" like family, but that's a decision the rest of the billionaires have made as well. the question is "if you're going to work incessantly and sacrifice so much, why not work towards truly great things instead of 50% off coupons, places to post pictures of cats, or time-wasting games?"
• lutusp 14y ago
  > As much as I admire the dreams and accomplishments of Elon Musk, I have trouble getting past the idea that he failed to maintain his marriage (the biggest promise of them all) and rarely sees his own children. Look at the personal histories of accomplished men and women throughout history, and you will see many examples of lives in which personal relationships and children were a low or nonexistent priority -- these are often lives dedicated to doing something important instead. To put this in the simplest possible way, can you tell me the names of Einstein's children? I can -- they're Special Relativity, General Relativity, and the photoelectric effect. They look great together in family photographs. Einstein actually had biological children, but they just weren't very important to his life or his work. How about the children of two-time (1903 and 1911) Nobel Prizewinner Marie Curie? She had children, but they just weren't very important, either to her personally or to her place in history -- consider that, in her lengthy Wikipedia article, her children are only mentioned in passing (she had two): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie > Maybe the answer to OP's question is, "Because many who could dream and do like Elon Musk would rather focus on the "little things" like life, love, and family. Yes, and, given what extraordinary people can accomplish when they are more focused, that's often a tragedy. Consider how often one hears stories of people who inadvertently get involved in child-raising who have no aptitude for it, and who do a terrible job. My point? Relationships and family are a choice in life, not a requirement. People -- men and women -- should feel free to focus on career instead if they wish. The idea that relationships and family are primary requirements is a persistent myth that disproportionately hurts women in their careers, but men as well. Giving birth to a child is nice, but there's no shortage of people doing that. Giving birth to an idea is extraordinary, and far too few people make that life choice.
• sriramnrn 14y ago
  I see Elon Musk as a person who believes that the Sky is not the limit, and has the drive, money and intelligence to establish this. He may not have the skills/patience to lead a family life, and is not alone in this regard.
• enraged_camel 14y ago
  You know, we have a word for it. It's called "sacrifice." I'm a family man myself, and I'm very close to my parents and sister. That said, I have a lot of respect for people who forego the traditional family lifestyle to work on big, important problems[1]. Elon Musk is one such man. Therefore it is unfair to judge him for his failed marriage. As for his children, think of it this way: if SpaceX manages to pave the way to a "Space Age," then billions and billions of children in the Earth's future will benefit from it in more ways than imaginable. [1]The caveat here is that the problems have to be both difficult and important to solve for humanity as a whole. Space travel, global warming, cure for cancer, etc. The big problems of our day.
• oliverhunt 14y ago
  Some of the responses you are getting are as if you are the anti-Musk but you are right. People can choose family life, they can choose professional or a balance. I see one as an individual perspective and one as a society perspective. Musk will be remembered for his incredible achievements, he will not be remembered for being father of the year (any time soon at least according to your post).
  • Pwnguinz 14y ago
    Name one person that was named "father of the year"? I certainly can't bring any to mind (without googling or some such--assuming such an award is even given out by some tabloid outlet). Precisely why would Elon Musk care to be named something that has, for all practical intents and purposes, no value?
    • oliverhunt 14y ago
      It is a saying, I mean he will not be remembered as a present and attention giving father.