Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[viper37]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars -

How do you think the people who need it got there? 

Do little math of how long the trip takes, how much can be carried per trip and how many such trips would be needed on an annual basis.

1000 starships are needed, it takes 115 days on average to travel to Mars and Musk aims for a 500 000$ starting price with the long term goal being 200 000$ per trip, per person.

At this price point, a lot of Republicans could be shipped to Mars and let them build their own religious libertarian dictatorship* ideal colony and see how that works for them.


*it is an apparent contradiction, but only if you think about it.

[crazy canuck]

Antarctic research is viable because supply can be flown in.

Not so much on Mars -

How do you think the people who need it got there? 

Do little math of how long the trip takes, how much can be carried per trip and how many such trips would be needed on an annual basis.

1000 starships are needed, it takes 115 days on average to travel to Mars and Musk aims for a 500 000$ starting price with the long term goal being 200 000$ per trip, per person.

At this price point, a lot of Republicans could be shipped to Mars and let them build their own religious libertarian dictatorship* ideal colony and see how that works for them.


*it is an apparent contradiction, but only if you think about it.

 

[grumbler]

SpaceX was created with the promise of drilling asteroids for minerals.  So far, it  has put satellites in orbit and his creating risk for future space navigation by crowding the higher atmosphere of various clutter and objects.  And he's not a team player, refusing any attempt at discussion with NASA toward solving this.

There were many, many accidents with SpaceX, which might have been excusable if he were the first, but he wasn't.  We've been launching rockets since the 50s.  He's just trying to do his own thing insisting he knows better than everyone else.  Just because he's smart does not mean everyone else is dumb.

Now, SpaceX.  It's still not close to drilling asteroid and he's promising to send people to Mars.  It is still hype.  Pumping stock with hype.

Doesn't mean he isn't a genius.  He is.  But he can be an asshole too. And lot of other things too.  His Twitter bid was just one more example of his dickish behavior.  He never wanted to seriously buy Twitter to preserve freedom of expression on the platform.  FFS, I don't think he even cares about wether Trump is there or not.

Where to begin...

I've never heard that SpaceX started by promising to mine asteroids.  Googling suggests no such thing.  Pretty much from the beginning it was just about cutting the cost of orbital launches.

Many, many accidents... the first three Falcon 1 rockets blew up on launch.  Not sure that counts as "many, many".  Also not sure that's all that out of the ordinary.  The other option is to pull a Blue Origin and just not launch anything at all for years.

'his own thing insisting it's better' - SpaceX has done something revolutionary in rocket launches - making re-usable rockets.  It really is better than anyone else in the sector.  It really has dramatically cut the cost of reaching orbit.  This is not just hype.  (not that Musk doesn't do a lot of hyping - just that in this area he's matched the hype)

Yeah, you can criticize SpaceX for a number of things, but losing the first three test launches of the Falcon 1 isn't one of them.  That's just how experimental technology works.  SpaceX has cut the cost/kg to Low Earth Orbit from a bit less than $6,000 for the Atlas or a bit more than $4,000 for the Soyuz to a bit less than $1,000 for the Falcon Heavy.  That's a pretty remarkable accomplishment. 

SpaceX has never claimed that one of its missions was asteroid mining, though I am sure that Musk has talked about that kind of mining in conjunction with lowering costs of material into space.

The price of SpaceX stock isn't high because of "Musk hype" but because SpaceX is the most diligent company at reducing payload costs and thus gets the lion's share of launch business.

[alfred russel]

At this price point, a lot of Republicans could be shipped to Mars and let them build their own religious libertarian dictatorship* ideal colony and see how that works for them.


*it is an apparent contradiction, but only if you think about it.

The initial spaceship with colonists could be called the Mayflower.

[Berkut]

SpaceX was created with the promise of drilling asteroids for minerals.  So far, it  has put satellites in orbit and his creating risk for future space navigation by crowding the higher atmosphere of various clutter and objects.  And he's not a team player, refusing any attempt at discussion with NASA toward solving this.

There were many, many accidents with SpaceX, which might have been excusable if he were the first, but he wasn't.  We've been launching rockets since the 50s.  He's just trying to do his own thing insisting he knows better than everyone else.  Just because he's smart does not mean everyone else is dumb.

Now, SpaceX.  It's still not close to drilling asteroid and he's promising to send people to Mars.  It is still hype.  Pumping stock with hype.

Doesn't mean he isn't a genius.  He is.  But he can be an asshole too. And lot of other things too.  His Twitter bid was just one more example of his dickish behavior.  He never wanted to seriously buy Twitter to preserve freedom of expression on the platform.  FFS, I don't think he even cares about wether Trump is there or not.

Where to begin...

I've never heard that SpaceX started by promising to mine asteroids.  Googling suggests no such thing.  Pretty much from the beginning it was just about cutting the cost of orbital launches.

Many, many accidents... the first three Falcon 1 rockets blew up on launch.  Not sure that counts as "many, many".  Also not sure that's all that out of the ordinary.  The other option is to pull a Blue Origin and just not launch anything at all for years.

'his own thing insisting it's better' - SpaceX has done something revolutionary in rocket launches - making re-usable rockets.  It really is better than anyone else in the sector.  It really has dramatically cut the cost of reaching orbit.  This is not just hype.  (not that Musk doesn't do a lot of hyping - just that in this area he's matched the hype)

Yeah, you can criticize SpaceX for a number of things, but losing the first three test launches of the Falcon 1 isn't one of them.  That's just how experimental technology works.  SpaceX has cut the cost/kg to Low Earth Orbit from a bit less than $6,000 for the Atlas or a bit more than $4,000 for the Soyuz to a bit less than $1,000 for the Falcon Heavy.  That's a pretty remarkable accomplishment. 

SpaceX has never claimed that one of its missions was asteroid mining, though I am sure that Musk has talked about that kind of mining in conjunction with lowering costs of material into space.

The price of SpaceX stock isn't high because of "Musk hype" but because SpaceX is the most diligent company at reducing payload costs and thus gets the lion's share of launch business.

Yeah, but he is a dick. Let's stay focused on what is important.

Can we have another 50 assholes like Musk please?

[Zoupa]

It's not binary. You can be decent and gifted at the same time.

[crazy canuck]

Can we have another 50 assholes like Musk please?

The unfortunate news is there are a lot more than 50 assholes like Musk.

The fortunate news is there are a lot of decent people who are also brilliant, doing a lot of great things.

[Berkut]

It's not binary. You can be decent and gifted at the same time.

Has someone argued otherwise?

[Berkut]

Can we have another 50 assholes like Musk please?

The unfortunate news is there are a lot more than 50 assholes like Musk.

The fortunate news is there are a lot of decent people who are also brilliant, doing a lot of great things.

No, there are not more then 50 assholes "like Musk" unless your blinders are such that the "asshole" part is the only thing you care about.

Indeed, if you focus on just the asshole part, there are probably a billion of them. 

If you focus on the "accomplishment" part, they are rather rare.

[grumbler]

Can we have another 50 assholes like Musk please?

The unfortunate news is there are a lot more than 50 assholes like Musk.

Can you name even ten of those fifty?  I'll allow you to name people who haven't transformed two industries and getting set to transform a third; your candidates only need to have transform one major industry (and must not be retired).

[crazy canuck]

Can we have another 50 assholes like Musk please?

The unfortunate news is there are a lot more than 50 assholes like Musk.

Can you name even ten of those fifty?  I'll allow you to name people who haven't transformed two industries and getting set to transform a third; your candidates only need to have transform one major industry (and must not be retired).

Assholes - sure. 

[Barrister]

It's an interesting question - does being a innovative, disruptive [insert other silicon valley buzzwords here] type leader necessarily require the person to be perceived as an asshole?

Because you can certainly think of lots of examples of that sort of archetype: Musk, Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg.  Heck going back Henry Ford and John D Rockefeller were not necessarily perceived well.

It's different to be a CEO of a well-established company(I think Tim Cook seems to be a nice guy).

But can anyone think of a contrary example?  Someone who was scrupulously ethical, in both business and personal life, yet still formed a huge innovative company?

[Jacob]

No, there are not more then 50 assholes "like Musk" unless your blinders are such that the "asshole" part is the only thing you care about.

Indeed, if you focus on just the asshole part, there are probably a billion of them.

If you focus on the "accomplishment" part, they are rather rare.

I guess it depends on what you consider "like Musk".

Let's start with the one billion assholes you posit. Let's say 10% of them have decent levels of intelligence, social skills and entrepreneurial instincts (we take the top 10%, however you define it). That leaves us 100 million.

Let's say 1% of those are born into families with a reasonably solid levels of educational opportunities, financial wherewithal, social networking, and other preqrequisites to go into entrepreneurial business. Now we have 1 million proto-Musks.

Entrepreneurship is hard. There are many many failures, though some folks pick up and try again. To keep the math simple, let's just say 1 in 10 make it from one tier of success to the next. So of the 1 million proto-Musk, 100,000 become sort of successful, of those 10,000 become solidly wealthy, 1,000 of those become genuinely rich, 100 become really rich, 10 become straight up billionaires, and 1 becomes Elon Musk.

The question is whether if we added 10 more people to the initial pool who are exactly like Elon Musk whether we'd end up with 11 Elon Musks at the end (i.e. there's something uniquely special about Musk individually).

Alternately, Musk (meeting some basic prerequisites to start the path and not actively self-sabotage) could be the product of a system that produces winners at each tier. Musk had some combination of skill and luck to make it, but if he didn't someone else would have... but whoever wins, we apply a certain amount of selection bias to the specific qualities that Musk has.

[Jacob]

It's an interesting question - does being a innovative, disruptive [insert other silicon valley buzzwords here] type leader necessarily require the person to be perceived as an asshole?

Because you can certainly think of lots of examples of that sort of archetype: Musk, Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg.  Heck going back Henry Ford and John D Rockefeller were not necessarily perceived well.

It's different to be a CEO of a well-established company(I think Tim Cook seems to be a nice guy).

But can anyone think of a contrary example?  Someone who was scrupulously ethical, in both business and personal life, yet still formed a huge innovative company?

I think to go from small to massive, you are going to make decisions that will rub people the wrong way which will give birth to the "they're an asshole" narrative. At the same time, once you're famous every foible will be magnified which will contribute as well.

That said, I don't think there's much of an "he's an asshole" narrative attached to Warren Buffett, and he went from not much to very very rich.

Personally, while there are negative narratives about Gates, Zuckerberg, and Bezos I don't think the "douchebag"/ "asshole" ones are nearly as strong as the one around Musk - which is driven, IMO, by his social media presence (and which also contributes to the "Randian super-man" narrative around him as well).

[Zoupa]

It's not binary. You can be decent and gifted at the same time.

Has someone argued otherwise?

Kinda, yeah.