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Comment by AsyncAwait | Hacker News Reader

> People always seem to put Musk on a pedestal. Personally, I've always been (and always will be) leery of a company run by a PayPal founder.

Bingo! I never quite got the Musk hype train, between how he treats his employees, doesn't respect work life balance, has unrealistic expectations and talks about people not wanting to work for him as less talented, promotes the idea of American exceptionalism etc., I don't see the appeal.

As for his 'accomplishments', he seems to talk a lot and constantly over promise/under deliver. I guess his appeal is that his companies at least approach the exciting territory, which is quite a difference from another 'food delivery startup' of the Valley, but lets not make an average (if electric) car made by Tesla, with plenty of its own, documented QC problems something it is not, just because Musk is involved.

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Musk is many things.

* As an investor I would not invest money in Musk's business. It's too risky and ego driven. He finances his endeavors just as creatively as he does technology and takes lots of risk. He is clearly not after money. Money is just tool for him. It's either Mars or bust. Inspiring but not good thing from investor point of view.

* From a technological point of view I admire what Musk has accomplished. His single mindedness has moved space technology forward. He should be admired for what he has done. He has deserved his hype. He has knack of getting things done while stretching everything very close to failure. Even if his businesses fails and he loses everything, that technology is there and others buy it.

* From a humanistic point of view, I understand that Musk will throw people under the bus if they are in the way of his goals. I would not want to be dependent on him any way.

Musk is very typical driven tech industry titan. You have to prioritize. If personal ambition is high, all other issues must come second. Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates all have documented mean streaks towards other people and workers. We should understand that highest level of accomplished very often comes with high human cost. There is a choice.

This is where government regulations should come in.

Musk is not treating people badly because he is malevolent. It's just means to the end. If mistreatment of workers can't be used to gain competitive edge, it stops.

He risked everything to make a rocket company from nothing, if ever there was a person that earned the hype, this is the person.

Really? Everything? His life? His children’s lives? Or just money? Or just his investor’s money?

My point being if you have a lot you can risk a lot in absolute terms, but maybe not so in terms relative to your own wealth or well-being.

I don’t think he even risked his reputation with his space rocket thing. ‘Fail fast, etc’, right?

He was at one point, when both Tesla and SpaceX were early in their lifetimes and bleeding money, on the verge of bankruptcy and (from what came out from his ex-wife) a mental breakdown.

He's risked far more than most investors, including bailing out his own companies (SpaceX and Solar City) by taking personal loans against his stock in others that were doing better (Tesla).

If he hasn't infused the cash, SpaceX at least would have failed. There were a number of finance articles about it at the time "questioning" the odd moves, but paraphrased from Musk, 'If investors are risking their money, shouldn't I be risking mine too?'

If your metric for "enough" is "work to literal death" then I expect you'll continue to be unsatisfied.

Space X was a Falcon failure away from shutting down. Isn't that risking reputation enough? He's selling the world the vision of Falcon Heavy, BFR, Mars colony. Any of that fail and he will be known forever as an ambitious but failed businessman.

The result was failure. Now we are approaching two failures with other people's money. He has these lofty ideas and unrealistic promises none of which he can deliver on. It's almost like he's an underperforming employee.

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