I applaud Elon, but I gotta say I'm uncomfortable with the extreme adulation. His company merged into Paypal -- he did not invent that payment solution. He was an investor in Tesla before taking it over -- the original idea and company were not his. The press paints him otherwise on both counts. That's undoubtedly a better story (and perhaps we're at a point where we need to believe in a hero-inventor), but I don't think inaccuracy actually serves us well.
There is a certain kind of crazy, the one where you can have $10M in the bank after a lot of hard work and struggle. And then put all of it at risk for something you believe in and everyone else is telling you is stupid. In gambling it is that person who has a fortune in their chip pile and they say "let it ride", except in this case bankruptcy is on the other side.
I think Elon deserves all the credit there. I think of it as a Ferris Beuller complex, people who just "go for it" without a safety net, betting they will be able to adapt, avoid, and overcome any obstacle that gets thrown at them. It is a level of fearlessness that is not supported by any rational process, and it is the thing that turns people from ordinary into extraordinary.
It doesn't always work out. There are always stories of people for whom they didn't dodge when they needed to. And like stories of "can't miss" hedge fund traders, are suddenly just as broke as most of the world. But you have to respect people that can operate at that level of stress. The money quote is this one:
“What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. Most people who are under that sort of pressure fray. Their decisions go bad. Elon gets hyperrational. He’s still able to make very clear, long-term decisions. The harder it gets, the better he gets.”
Bachelor's in physics, Bachelor's in Econ. at Warton, began PHd at Stanford, comes from a prominent family(usually meaning rich).
He had a safety net. Just wanted to keep it real Homies. (I think the guy is great. It's just he had a safety net. He wasn't going to be panhandling by risk. Plus, when he made his investments his resume was pretty impressive. My biggest hope is his battery factory, and he keeps Tesla afloat when the other car makers hit us with electrical automobiles.)
True, but having to fall back to getting a 9/5, however choice a position it might be, would be quite the blow after having tens of millions in the bank. It wouldn't feel like much of a safety net.
Many of the people who believe in him could very well be people who wish to be him. Likewise, many of those against Elon Musk might feel inferior to him and therefore try to diminish what he has accomplished.
I am of the opinion that self-value should not be contingent upon the perceived value of others.
Ambition and willing to take a risk is not a rare thing.
Musk is no different from the huge number of people involved in startups except that he is investing more money. Many of us are investing all of our valuable time and money in risky ventures instead of saving and taking the rational path in life.
And stop acting like Musk is doing this for pure altruism. He stands to make a lot of money and get written into the history books if these companies are wildly successful. And from everything I've read he has enough of an ego to make those goals a pretty significant reason for these companies.
"Musk is no different from the huge number of people involved in startups except that he is investing more money. Many of us are investing all of our valuable time and money in risky ventures instead of saving and taking the rational path in life."
Seriously? Like Are you actually serious when you write this? You seriously believe that the only difference between Musk and the huge number of people working on startups is that he is investing more money?
You do not think that it has something to do with working on hard problems that nobody thinks are worthwhile until later on. You also do not think it has to do with him actually solving said hard problems. You also do not think it has anything to do with him being smart enough to manage multiple fields like a physics, computer science, engineering and design and have in depth discussions about rockets and space explorations at the same level as he can about electric cars and software? You also seriously believe that someone who is motivated by money would go and try to start a private rocket company that can deliver people to Mars and is reusable? Seriously? They wouldn't just go make some web app and "flip it"? This response is atypical for me but it's hard for me to read this sort of response and respond normally.
Not to mention, risking everything when you have $10k in the bank is a hell of a lot different than risking everything when you have $50M. In the first case, if you fail, oh well, you get a job for a year or two and earn it back. In the second case, the impact is rather... more significant.
Honestly? The person with $50M is risking a lot less.
If you only have $10k to your name, that $10k might the difference between being homeless or not. If you have $50M, even in an extreme worst-case scenario (say your investment suffers a 99% loss) you still have $500,000, more than most people accumulate in a lifetime!
As someone who actually did start a company with a few grand in the bank, it felt like a lot less of a risk than it would now to put 99% of my savings into a new venture. I had a couple engineering degrees, and could have easily gotten a new job if I'd failed. If I risked my savings now and failed it would have a much more significant impact on my life.
One way to understand this is to include employment capital in your calculations. A person with $10k in the bank has considerably more employment capital than investment capital. A person with $50M in the bank has insignificant employment capital compared to their investment capital. So risking 99% of their investment capital would be considerably more, as a percentage of their total capital, than the first person risking their entire $10k.
> If I risked my savings now and failed it would have a much more significant impact on my life.
Is that really true? I guess I've never been that rich, so I don't have any personal experience, but it seems to me like the lifestyle impact of going from $10M to $1M would be a lot less significant than going from $10k to $1,000.
I agree with your analysis of "total capital", but I think you're neglecting the real lifestyle factors.
I can only speak for myself, and I'm not at $10M, but I can definitely say that for me the lifestyle change would be much greater in that case than in the 10k to 1k case.
$10M is, as they say, 'FU money'. $1M could be, maybe, but with a much different standard of living. Where I live you could easily blow the million just on a fairly standard upper middle class house. Losing most of your 10k on the other hand, while unfortunate, would hardly be life changing because it's not enough to do much with in the first place.
Now, if you reliably earn $1M a year, then sure, losing the 9M probably wouldn't be a huge issue. But that isn't the case if you're sitting on $10M from selling your startup.
> because it's not enough to do much with in the first place.
Uh...I mean, $10k would pay my rent for slightly more than a year (I don't live in SF). That's more than enough time for me to find a new job. On the other hand, $1,000 would pay my rent for less than 2 months. That's plenty of time for me to get evicted and be out on the street.
Yes, of course, initially. The risking it all period isn't when you're considering spending a few million to buy some rockets. But then the day comes when you're this close to finally succeeding, but you're running out of cash. You need more now to make payroll, and there's nowhere else left to get it. Sure, you could cut your losses and walk away with 3 million, but then a) you probably wouldn't have risked the 47M in the first place, and b) you likely wouldn't end up where Musk is now.
This isn't a hypothetical. As the article describes, there was a point when he was begging or borrowing every cent he could. I don't know what his personal financial situation would have been had it failed, but I doubt he held much back.
"Ambition and willing to take a risk is not a rare thing."
It is a bit more nuanced than that. When a 3 lb terrier starts barking and growling at you, you have one reaction, when a 175 lb rottweiler does the same you have a different reaction. Those situations are, on their surface, exactly the same. You are being threatened by a dog. But the realities of the two situations are very different because what is at stake. The terrier can be kicked across the room, the rottweiler will likely kill you. It is really impossible to know how you are going to respond until you're actually in the situation.
Perhaps not surprisingly, for a lot of people there are things worse than dying. And for many of the people I've known letting down people who are depending on them ranks pretty high on that list.
Musk is very different from "most" people. We know this because he has been in the fire and we've seen the result. Look at the stories of the fall of the twin towers on 9/11. Most people paniced and froze, a small number of people took action and evacuated.
At the critical stress level, when your limbic system cannot take it any more, it takes over. Some people become rabbits, some people become tigers, and the really weird thing is that I don't think you can really have any idea which way you'll go until you experience it. You can believe you will do one thing or another, but you don't really know. Scott McNealy shared with me that all you could do as a leader was to put people into really stressful situations, to see where they broke, and then note which side of the coin they fell on. It is why the armed forces put new recruits in to actual life threatening situations, to watch them panic and evaluate their response.
I don't know Elon, but if he is as characterized in interviews and by third party accounts, I don't think he altruistic so much as he is driven. The most amazing person I have ever met in person who is truly driven was Dean Kamen at one of the FIRST competitions in San Jose. It seemed like he could live to be 150 and still not get done all of the things he was driven to do before he passes. It isn't about altruism and it isn't about wealth, it is all about getting the important thing done. What ever that is. And someone who is driven AND functional in the face of extreme stress, is, in my experience, a rare individual.
Ambition and willing to take a risk is not a rare thing.
Yes, most will agree. But having ambition, taking risk and being successful is a rare, rare thing. Especially after you made your fortune AND having the gut to risk it all. Now THAT is a rare thing.
I think that's a weak argument. Apple doesn't make the profits cause it builds iPhones in California. It does so because it chose the Eastern shores for a strategic reason. If your aim is to go cheaper, then to not take advantage of global-trade is really going to set one back by a significant margin. But I understand that Elon Musk is a patriotic South African who wants to create jobs for South Africans, in South Africa... oh, wait, I meant, the United States.
Doesn't matter. Elon still relies on government funding because he's selling to government.
It's no different than when Rockwell/North American built the Space Shuttle.
The biggest problem is that his ideas are just so boring and uninspiring. How about a new idea for a change? (Hyperloop isn't more exciting than High-Speed rail)
Being known for someone that "did something for slightly cheaper" isn't exactly awe-inspiring. Sucks that millennials are stuck with him for inspiration.
SpaceX's manifest for this year [1] shows 7 US government launches, 6 commercial launches, and 1 SpaceX-paid R&D launch (Falcon Heavy). Yes the US government is pre-paying for some R&D for Crew Dragon, but no, it doesn't add up to 90% of revenue.
>Everything they're ... planning on doing, has already been done.
So landing a rocket after launch to re-use that rocket has already been done? Going to be interesting when they are the first to do so but it's already been done. I'd love to hear how you reason that.
Doing things in a more efficient, cheaper manner means innovating new ways of development, testing, and building. More 'affordable' ventures into space can lead to an array of improvements. More research satellites being sent into space, as an example, because instead of costing $12 million to ship into space it costs $4 million [0].
I'm sorry you don't see the value in such things, but rest assured it is there.
[0] figures made up, can't be bothered searching for accurate pricing
What other nation or private entity has come up with a visionary idea in space industry? Let me remind you he first thought about sending a life capsule to Mars on a former ballistic missile. Isn't that visionary enough ya?
With Jobs gone, we need a new hero-inventor to worship. Such is life.
Seriously though, when I was a kid I would read about "famous scientists of old" every night. They were my rockstars. Edison, Watt, Lister, the list goes on. I had a book about them, their lives, their inventions. Everything. I must have read that book a thousand times before I was 14.
Then one day when I was 18 I visited the London technical museum. In it was a Watt exhibit. It said "Watt bought a lot of patents, he invented a few small things, but his main innovation was leasing steam engines instead of selling them."
It was then that I realized all those scientists of old I worship weren't scientists at all. They were good engineers. Excellent integrators of other people's inventions and work. Magnificent funders of scientists' work.
But most of all they were businessmen. Because it doesn't matter who invents a thing, what matters is who uses the thing to bring actual change to people.
It doesn't matter who invented the lightbulb. It matters who invented the electricity grid so people could actually use lightbulbs in their homes.
The Story of Science is a great six part BBC documentary that talks a lot about the phenomenon you are describing, and episode four talks about Watt specifically. I highly recommend it, and it can be found online.
When I was young, I had a large amount of respect for Edison.
When I found out the truth - that he was a businessman more than an inventor - it was quite a let down. Many of his ideas were stolen from people who worked beneath him and the publicity campaign for DC power over AC power is simply terrible.
>it doesn't matter who invents a thing, what matters is who uses the thing to bring actual change to people.
And this is the sad truth of many famous 'inventors'.
He invented the modern research lab, which is kind of a big deal. Regardless of how many or few of the creative breakthroughs were his personally, he pushed a lot of technology forward, he was sort of the ultimate maker and deserves a great deal of credit.
So he should be credited for his achievements and not falsely accredited for others' achivements.
My respect for him was one of an inventor. The problem is everything I had respected him for inventing - he hadn't even invented!
It's like being told Superman isn't actually Superman, he's Batman. Sure, he's still a superhero and might do awesome things. But I like Superman, I'm not a big fan of Batman. *
*this is a terrible analogy, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to convey.
> And this is the sad truth of many famous 'inventors'.
Why do you think that? Is not the person who makes the lightbulb useful is deserving of more praise than the person who merely invents it?
There are a lot of prototypes out there that never make it in the real world. I don't think the hard work that goes into making things useful on a day-to-day basis should be disregarded.
My argument is not that a new invention cannot be based off of or require previous inventions in order to function. My argument is that improving an invention is not possible without the invention existing.
It's like improving upon a camera without cameras existing. The invention of the camera, in my opinion, is more important than the continued improvements of the camera, at least up until digital cameras - which is innovative enough to recapture the concept of photography but improve upon it in many significant ways. [0]
While improving upon an invention has its own worth and merit - I do not typically hold improving something to the same merit as inventing it. Coming from someone who often improves things, but does not create them.
When it is a drastic improvement or an entirely different approach (ie. innovative changes) - those hold a great deal of merit and may be worthy of respect. But being able to market something better is not something I respect.
I do not hold a lot of respect for marketers and advertisers. I see it as an abuse of trust against people by feeding them subtle lies and abusing how impressionable people can be. If you respect good marketers, then we're merely at a disagreement of opinion. I do not respect people who are skilled at manipulating people. While it may certainly take skill, require knowledge, and may even be difficult! It is not deserving of respect, in my opinion.
[0] Or arguably make it worse, depending on your artistic perspective.
Jobs is similar, not actually an inventor (people like Woz did that), but understood it, so could manage, inspire, promote it. A tech CEO. Jobs owned more than one co. too, Pixar.
Reading the article, there is enough even there to give credit to the adulation. The guy's main company is SpaceX, oh and while he was figuring out how to launch rockets into space at a fraction of the cost of the norm (a massive challenge), he happened to rescue another company that he became CEO of from bankruptcy.
The big losers in Musk's life are clearly his wife and kids, but I don't see how you can suggest he didn't do (and continues to do) some very very special things for humanity as a whole. If the electric car succeeds and we move from fossil fuels in a big way, he will be a major reason for this. If we commercialize space and become a space-faring species, the same position holds.
> The big losers in Musk's life are clearly his wife and kids
He met his first wife at age ~20 then divorced her at 37. He was already successful when he met his second wife, so she knew what was in the social contract and probably chose on purpose.
Paypal did not invent electronic payment.
Tesla did not invent the electric car or batteries.
SpaceX did not invent rockets.
SolarCity did not invent solar roofs.
But I have an enormous respect for this man, just making rockets affordable is a great service for humanity.
"That's undoubtedly a better story"
(Citation needed) This sounds to me like : I feel so envious because someone else did something remarkable, that if I accept to give merit to him I will be accepting that I could do better than I do. So something, somewhere must exist to prove he has not merit.
"but I don't think inaccuracy actually serves us well."
Again (Citation needed), after stating your prejudice, you jump to take it as fact.
What is inaccurate about Elon here?
The article talks about good, but also not so good things about Elon personality.
I created my own companies and had to take very similar risks in my life, with everybody in my life believing I was crazy when I put "safe" money in the bank at risk(specially in Europe and Asia taking risks is a big no,no). Everything in the article sounds pretty veridical for anyone with experience in this field.
> But I have an enormous respect for this man, just making rockets affordable is a great service for humanity.
His business means rockets are going to go from $400 million to $150 million. That's nice and all, but it's not an extraordinary revolution. For equivalent, or cheaper rockets, see the Indian space program. They've launched rockets to Mars for cheap already.
I don't get the millennials adulation for him, either. Seems like a random guy for so many millennials to latch onto.
My guess is, because millennials never grew up with the amazing Apollo or Space Shuttle era, they feel Elon is somehow doing something novel and innovative, even with the Indian/Chines space programs going on as well.
If you want to see some sci-fi magic, just look at the Space Shuttle, That's some amazing witchcraft right there. The ideas NASA were throwing around in the 70's were insane. They were talking about constructing giant space stations with multiple shuttle vehicles at a time, with artificial gravity. Too bad Nixon killed their funding.
> His business means rockets are going to go from $400 million to $150 million. That's nice and all, but it's not an extraordinary revolution.
Rockets didn't cost $400 million before SpaceX. You could already get a satellite into geostationary orbit for about $70 million -- or rather, you would have been able to, if politics hadn't intervened.
Twenty years ago, the Chinese were major players in the launch services market. They picked up quite a bit of business after the Challenger explosion. One of the two commercial satellites that was retrieved by STS-51A was re-launched on a Chinese rocket. One-fifth of the original Iridium constellation was launched on Chinese rockets.
In the late 1990s, the United States banned launches on Chinese rockets if the satellite had any American parts. That meant that no Western satellites could be launched on Chinese rockets. What happens to prices when the low bidder isn't allowed to bid? You guessed it.
What SpaceX has accomplished so far is to restore prices to where they would be if the Chinese had stayed in the market. It's impressive that they can match "the China price" from California. However, it's not exactly revolutionizing the industry yet.
A large communications satellite costs hundreds of millions of dollars. A large military satellite costs over $1 billion. Launch costs are simply not the constraining factor in the satellite industry.
However, SpaceX is promising to drive costs even lower through reusability. Then we'll see if there's actually as much price elasticity in launch services as Elon Musk is expecting. That will ultimately determine SpaceX's legacy, whether it is a revolution or not.
> If you want to see some sci-fi magic, just look at the Space Shuttle, That's some amazing witchcraft right there.
A reusable spacecraft that costs more than an expendable launcher?
>You could already get a satellite into geostationary orbit for about $70 million -- or rather, you would have been able to, if politics hadn't intervened.
Going to Mars is a first step. It wouldn't surprise me if large space stations with artificial gravity come about someday either - and come about much sooner than they otherwise would have if Musk hadn't decided to pursue his goal of making humans a multiplanet species.
Anyway, perhaps I could have worded things differently as I didn't mean to imply he had the exact same visions as those from the 70's, just that he decided to go after grand ideas now that the government decided it isn't worth their money.
All three of Musk's most recent ventures (SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX), depend either on direct or indirect government subsidies. It's not just that Musk is a workaholic, or possibly innovative, but his ability to "work" the system that sets him apart. US tax payers are paying a significant portion of the bills for his ventures. Since I agree with his goals, it doesn't personally bother me very much but it still is something worth thinking about.
US Tax payers will be paying for something, considering that the majority of the US economy is private, and the government has to get stuffs done somehow. So if you agree with the goals of a private entity that the government is spending the money on, it's about as good as it could be.
I've tried editing a bunch but always get downvotes, so here it is on a throwaway.
-> how would you work Hyperloop into your list of examples?
You couldn't, in my opinion, because it's counter to your argument and position, which is needlessly, gratuitously negative. Perhaps you can't see the difference between someone to idolize, who is an engineer that can proceed from first principles to leaving no stone, degree of freedom, or axis unturned and delivering a solution...and, someone like kzhahou above who literally ignores 1 out of 4 examples we have of Musk's invention, creativity and leadership. (The 4 examples we have are as a PayPal cofounder only, as a Tesla investor and ALSO product architect - his official role -, which we can see whenever he talks about the trade-offs, as a SpaceX investor, and in envisioning and engineering the basic constraints in HyperLoop.)
you are saying the "inaccuracy" of him being a hero-inventor doesn't serve us well. I say it does, because people will give him money, and he can deliver on great designs as he has proven an ability to do.
taking that away from him because you're uncomfortable with extreme adulation is the opposite of everything capitalism stands for: if you prove you can design, engineer, build, manage, and lead to great things, you get to do more of them.
(sorry you can't tell the difference, but reflecting on why you chose to leave out the quarter of his ventures that he is chief inventor on would serve you well. also reflecting on the degree to which he is product architect at tesla would do the same. finally you can look at zip2, which is what he did, including personally, before payapl.)
Hyperloop doesn't exist. Musk isn't even trying to implement it, and lots of good engineers think it's totally impractical. If anything, it's a good counter example to his other ventures, which are outstanding executions of non-visionary ideas.
At any rate, parent comment is correct that there's an unhealthy degree of hero-worship veneration for Musk around these parts.
I see. And if he does implement it, you will come back and say he didn't do that with his two bare hands, but basically had other people do large parts. You people in this thread just don't get it.
What's to get? Yes, if Hyperloop ever does get built, it won't be because Musk conjured it out of thin air with the sheer force of his genius-will. I don't believe in the Great Man Theory[0] and neither do most serious scholars. Humanity moves forward through the combined contribution of millions of mostly-unsung workers.
Also, I just think it's a bit creepy how many people on here wish Elon Musk was their daddy.
It's unfortunate that you try to tear other people's work down with negative commentary, and you should consider being more constructive about changing the world. In fact, other than the negative language you use, you have almost precisely described cause-and-effect.
Yes, if HyperLoop ever does get built, it will be a direct effect of Musk conjuring it out of thin air with the sheer force of his genius-will. Although you use derisive, negative, and quite unconstructive language.
You can use this language to dismiss anything. Go get a fork from your kitchen, put it on your table, and then move it so it falls to the ground. Why did it fall to the ground? It fell to the ground due to - in negative, dismissive terms, "humanity's almost preternatural ability to manipulate the environment in a way that transcends the abilities of plants and microorganism as shown through the genius-will of 'ForHackernews'". This description is correct except for the negative and unconstructive language.
The "Great Man theory" should probably now be called the "great person theory" as it is quite sexist, but other than that it is largely correct.
you don't want to make any positive impact on the world, then don't. but don't pull down those who do. I hope you will be more constructive in the future. good luck with everything you do that is in that direction.
Regarding Paypal, I think it's fair to say it was a merger of equals (Confinity and X.com). This post gives some more insights into the merger, I found it an interesting read.
He's a really smart guy, but there are lots of really smart guys out there.
He's a really lucky guy, but there are lots of really lucky guys out there.
There aren't many really smart, really lucky guys out there. One of the challenges is when we see really smart, really lucky guys, we tend to think of them as unbelievably smart and kind of lucky. One of the bigger challenges is when they start to see themselves that way.
No such thing as luck. I read the article and I wouldn't know what qualifies as outrageously lucky. The NASA deal that came just in time, maybe. But it's not luck to get a contract for launching rockets if you already demonstrated you can do it.
His parents were well-educated and part of the upper-class. This was pure luck and afforded him countless opportunities he wouldn't have otherwise. It's hard to overstate how lucky this was.
He had access to very good schooling in his childhood and free time to pursue his interests (computer programming). This was pure luck and critically important in forming who he is today.
He was able to obtain Canadian citizenship through his mother. This was pure luck and was very important when he emigrated to the US.
These are all incredibly lucky w.r.t the world at large. However, amongst HN readers and the tech community, there are millions of people who are U.S / Canadian citizens, with educated parents, and who know how to program. What were the 'outrageously lucky' factors that separated Musk from these millions?
I don't know, I just know he's one of the luckiest people on the planet. Even if we accept that there are, say, 100 million people who had the same luck in those three measures, that puts him the top 1.5% of the world's population. And that's all before he becomes an adult.
A bit over 400. Of those, 75% of them needed to be recalled due to manufacturing issues. [1][2]
My perception is that Musk brings very capable executive-level management to his projects. Tesla was dying without strong leadership (and had a string of temporary CEOs prior to Musk).
read heinlein's "the man who sold the moon" for a very good portrait of a hero-entrepreneur-visionary. i think that's more in line with musk's mystique than hero-inventor; he's not so much the man who invents things as the man who collects inventors together and makes things happen.
If you don't like this then I'm sure you'll hate the eventual, "Where did we go wrong with the electric car," articles after Tesla fails to deliver a $20,000 EV before going bankrupt. If the government pulls its corporate welfare, which it probably will under a GOP administration, Tesla is going to die a quick death.
Elon can't bring Li-Ion down to any level for compete with ICE cars, has terrible financials, and there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.
The title of this article is amusing because it seems to suggest that SpaceX is Elon's side bet and Tesla is some grand vision. Its not. If anything SpaceX is the great success here and if I was a betting man I'd say Tesla will become a footnote in history when SpaceX succeeds. I just wish he wasn't so anti-AI and anti-robot. I'm assuming he really needs to sell the public on human, not robotic, spaceflight for his company to succeed.
Only a very small part of income car is based on ZEV credits and if those were to go away they'd still have a ~20% profit margin which is well above most traditional auto companies. Their negative income has to do with the rapid expansion they are doing right now.
There always seems to be this ZOMG government bailout around Tesla when that's not really the case when you look at the entire picture.
They have a 22.6% GAAP gross margin excluding ZEV credits, BUT unlike every other car manufacturer Tesla doesn't account for R&D and engineering expenses as a fraction of COGS (that's why Elon can claim they are up there with Porsche and Audi, but that's a blatant lie).
Just examine their 10-K. Sometimes Tesla can be so opaque and impervious to questioning.
>there's something very off putting politically about hard-working middle-class families subsidizing ultra-sports cars for the wealthy.
It seemed to work out for our current President, who subsidized auto manufacturers through bailouts and "Cash for Clunkers" to buy electoral votes in OH and MI.
