Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth

> To put it another way, do we really think that if Jobs and Musk had never come along, there would have been no smartphone revolution, no surge of interest in electric vehicles?

This is a really weak argument, especially because we can look at the alternatives that exist, even with the benefit of being able to refer to the iPhone and the Tesla.

There was a smartphone revolution that predated the iPhone: BlackBerry. Apple had the benefit, not just of a ton of government-originated technology, but also a decade of experience with actual, successful smartphones at BlackBerry. Nokia had a number of pretty decent smartphones in the market. The Palm Treo had a bit of a following.

Yet the iPhone was at least an order of magnitude better. The delta between the sum of the mentioned devices and the first iPhone does not contain lots of governments funded research, it is almost entirely the work of a very small circle of visionaries at Apple.

The same applies to Tesla. There exists other electric cars, and they had existed for a decade or more before the first Roadster was released -- but they were jokes. Tesla/Musk didn't invent the electric car, they invented making a sexy electric car. Again, the delta between all electric cars except Teslas, and Teslas, isn't filled with government research.

Yes, it's disingenuous to suggest that government funded research doesn't matter and didn't lay the foundation of most modern technology -- but it's also disingenuous to apply "post hoc ergo procter hoc" to every modern invention "tainted" by government funded research.

> Musk insists on a success story that fails to acknowledge the importance of support from the government.

His top SpaceX customer is the government. Electric cars are subsidized. Solar energy too. I don't think there's any point in elaborating on how much Musk is dependent on government(s). Still, his companies kicked more ass than any other in markets he picked.

One of the livefyre comments neatly sums up the article:

"You didn't build that!"