Hacker News Reader

Comment by gpawl | Hacker News Reader

Whence this myth that Musk doesn't love money, just because he makes his money making cool tech?

http://variety.com/gallery/elon-musk-buys-fifth-bel-air-home...

http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mclaren-f1-hypercar... wrecked-it-2015-6

Because you don't make the choices he made if you love money. You absolutely do not start a rocket company. "If you want to make a small fortune in the rocket business, start with a large fortune."

That being said, maybe we're looking at things differently. I'm sure he prefers having money than not having it, but the macro scale choices he's made imply he values other things more than his personal fortune.

The popular opinion is that if you start a rocket company you will fail but if Musk thought that he would fail, he wouldn't have started SpaceX. He thought he could succeed in rockets = he thought he could make money off rockets. Musk is a businessman just like all the others, he just has a public persona/PR team which appeals to "nerds."

From a Musk interview with Pelley a while back on SpaceX/Tesla:

>>Scott Pelley: How did you figure you were going to start a car company and be successful at it?

>Elon Musk: Well, I didn't really think Tesla would be successful. I thought we would most likely fail. But I thought that we at least could address the false perception that people have that an electric car had to be ugly and slow and boring like a golf cart.

>>Scott Pelley: But you say you didn't expect the company to be successful? Then why try?

>Elon Musk: If something's important enough you should try. Even if for you — the probable outcome is failure.

Yeah my point is that I absolutely don't buy that. If Bezos came out and said that the reason for starting Amazon is really altruism or if Kalanick, speaking to the NY Times explained that, actually, Uber is rooted in fixing the false perceptions people have that public transportation has to be ugly and slow and boring we would all see right through that. Those are obvious examples of bullshit but when Musk comes out and say the exact same thing we blindly believe it. Why? It's all marketing, Musk's marketing is just marketing that's targeted at "our" demographic.

>Yeah my point is that I absolutely don't buy that. If Bezos came out and said that the reason for starting Amazon is really altruism or if Kalanick, speaking to the NY Times explained that, actually, Uber is rooted in fixing the false perceptions people have that public transportation has to be ugly and slow and boring we would all see right through that.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't see any reason not to believe similar sentiments from Bezos/Kalanick (if they actually said them -- I think the fact that they don't adds credence to those that do), even after a brief stint at Amazon (and having a prior Amazon VP as an investor). Obviously I've heard both good and bad things about both in the media, but I don't know either personally well enough to make a judgement call on their primary drive to succeed.

Uber has solved huge problems in transportation. Amazon's beginnings were humble and (IMO) hugely important as well. Musk is clearly doing big things as well, and I'm glad that all of the above have developed tech that benefits everyone. I would believe that was their goal as readily as I would believe they were just in it for the money.

> Musk's marketing is just marketing that's targetted at "our" demographic.

Couldn't agree more. Tech is a special demographic. If someone figured out how to target the newly wealthy tech crowd, they'd probably do pretty well.

People feel practical businessmen are money-focused. They think folks who appear to "risk it all" are altruistic.

Musk doesn't project the image of being practical. He claims to have almost gone broke when investing in Tesla/SpaceX, and now makes super-optimistic predictions: fully self driving cars in a year, and AGI in 2030-2040.

To some, this sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd. Yet, you can think of ways his actions benefit him.

By predicting things earlier than most researchers, he can appear to have some knowledge they don't, thus attracting more young (cheaper) AI talent, and a public following whose understanding of machine learning is understandably limited.

It's unfortunate because those who research machine learning remember the last AI craze of the 80s and the ensuing AI winter. The same thing happened. Over-hyped technology couldn't meet the wild expectations of the general public. These expectations had been stoked by entrepreneurs who thought (or lied) that they could create AGI. For example, Thinking Machines Corp.

Nobody is 100% altruistic. When we mistakenly afford someone that quality, we elevate them to god-like status where they can do no wrong.

It's a tough position for practical machine learning researchers. There are a lot of advances that will be made in the next few years. I hope more people will try out machine learning to get their own understanding of its power and limitations. Getting all your information on a subject from sensationalized news or recent products isn't as educational as studying/using the subject yourself.

This is of course all speculatory, but I think for many of us the things that sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd are his goals and how outspoken he is about them. He wants to get people to Mars, which as a business venture will not turn a profit in his lifetime. I'm not saying he is altruistic but rather that he might be more of the 'fame and glory' type, wanting to leave a larger mark than a big digit in some future Wikipedia bio.

Yeah. It's speculatory, for sure.

> he might be more of the 'fame and glory' type, wanting to leave a larger mark than a big digit in some future Wikipedia bio

Saying things like going to Mars could still benefit him business-wise, whether he actually takes on that mission or not. It attracts people who believe he is at the cutting edge.

> for many of us the things that sets him apart from the "money-focused" crowd are his goals and how outspoken he is about them

I don't know if Musk plans to be outspoken or not. It seems to be an effective business strategy in itself.

So, I take it all with a grain of salt.

I think there's an important distinction between altruistic and someone that isn't interested in money so much as in accomplishing things they want.

So, he's actually saying those things (AI skepticism, or that some general AI would happen in 20 years) just to attract cheaper and younger AI people in his companies? Seems to me like he just actually believes in those things, as he put so much money in OpenAI that he could have invested in Tesla to make all those researchers work on his self driving (granted he took Karpathy recently, but there's still tons of highlevel researchers working at OpenAI)

> So, he's actually saying those things (AI skepticism, or that some general AI would happen in 20 years) just to attract cheaper and younger AI people in his companies?

Possibly. He certainly benefits from the talent in operation at OpenAI. Whether people come over directly like Karpathy, or via networking, or through knowledge transfer.

> he put so much money in OpenAI that he could have invested in Tesla to make all those researchers work on his self driving

It could be cheaper to go through OpenAI. Other people invested in that company -- not just Musk. Also, a lot of machine learning tech and knowledge is transferrable across domains.

> Seems to me like he just actually believes in those things

He may well. I'm just saying it can also benefit his businesses to believe that AGI and fully self driving cars are coming soon.

Also, being so visionary and so much in the press, should definetly help stocks in his companies, because there's not really an objective way to value growth stocks.

Thanks, this was a really well-thought-out post.

Thanks. Did you know your account is banned and all your comments are flagged dead? Most people can't see them unless they've changed their settings to show dead comments.

They were told in this comment that their account was banned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13855630

How does wrecking expensive cars show that Musk loves money? To me it shows just the opposite!

He could've bought it all with his PayPal money.

I meant to say if you believe the narrative that he doesn't care about this scale of money to the same degree as a typical person.

Personally, I do believe that's true. I don't think that precludes him from still using his money for some fun stuff.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com