> I have no idea why anyone would expect him specifically to be able to do it while no one else could
People said the exact same thing before Tesla and SpaceX.
People said the exact same thing before Tesla and SpaceX.
For example, was Tesla a success because of some unique ingenuity by Musk? It seemed to me that his success was more the result of a commitment, both personally and financially, to building EVs that no one had previously had. Yes, that eventually led to success. But he didn't succeed were others tried and failed. He succeeded were the other auto manufacturers didn't even try because of their own bias towards the status quo. With Twitter he would need to succeed where every other social media platform has failed.
Not even that. Other people founded the company in 2003; he became Tesla's fourth CEO when they were about to launch the Roadster in 2008.
Musk was the first investor in Tesla, and chairman of the board from the beginning. While chairman, he was involved in the business. He took over as CEO in 2008 and has grown Tesla into the world's largest car company.
Trying to claim Tesla's success is not due to Musk is just wrong.
Nitpick: The most valued car company. Many larger companies in terms of employees and car output. Everything else sounds right though!
Regardless, of how you label it Elon created Tesla and there is no Tesla without elon.
Do we say the Warren Buffet owes everything to the founder of the New Bedford based Jewelry company Berkshire Hathaway? Hate Musk all you want but IDK why people try and discredit him with stuff like this
EDIT: Changed AP => AC
That's not what the actual founders say though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eblPwXFb7TE
They say he was not a founder within the first minute of the video.
I also think it's worth noting that he brought the best of current "good enough" manufacturing practices to luxury automobiles. I think this is the fairest examination of that, since it includes Elon himself: https://jalopnik.com/best-of-2021-in-epically-nerdy-intervie...
Our expectation around cars is that the build quality will be good from day one; this kind of incremental improvement approach is not common. IMHO it's also sub-par and somewhat dangerous for something as deadly as a car, but that's probably a side point for the current discussion.
We also see this with the Hyperloop. Big optimism, and the first actual implementation in Vegas kind of sucks. Maybe it'll improve over time, maybe not, but there's certainly an initial quality gap.
The question I'd ask is what does the equivalent look like for Twitter? I sort of think the "do it crappy, see how to improve it later" policy is more typical for social media.
I wouldn’t say best of ”good enough” .Tesla is actually one of the worst in terms of ”normal” car quality, even when compared to non-luxury cars. It has great battery, electric motors and even software, but normal items which you can see in normal car, are in the lowest side on quality. Also the way how you feel the car when driving is critized being B quality when compared for example German cars.
In many countries it has been listed on the best place on fault statistics (have most of then)
When you buy Tesla, you invest on EV research, not so much for luxury car while it might drive itself. You get a glance for the future.
Teslas, especially during the initial production runs for any given model, are built like Wayfair furniture. Good enough to do the job, but without a high level of quality. Turns out consumers will accept that.
Returning to the Twitter question: gosh, I hope Elon decides to invest heavily in areas I care about and doesn't ignore aspects which I think are vitally important.
See also: fast fashion.
Like electric cars and low cost access to space? Both of those fields are littered with the dead husks of failed attempts from prior decades.
Musk was hardly the first person to try any of this, he was the first person to be successful.
You do realize companies have been trying to make EVs even before there were fossil fuel powered ones, right?
There has never been a time in the last 150 years when some company wasn't making EVs.
The group in charge now caused more bleeding. Other social networks are doing great.
There is a lot of low hanging fruit.
He’s also guaranteeing that the soldiers still alive in the Mariupol steel plant can communicate with their families, because of a swarm of Starlink satelites currently positioned above Ukraine.
I dunno, I find the guy abrasive, but he does get results.
Whenever we achieve the grand unified theory of comment sections, it will include a formalized concept for this process of context loss as an explanation for where arguments come from.
The deeper in you go, the more likely that the reason the point was raised will be lost. And crosstalk will arise between people carrying on the original point and those who experience the latest comment as its own starting point.
Fact is the issue was largely already solved, even though the perception was that the water was still unsafe.
> They would like you to stop squabbling over stupid shit and causing drama so that they can spend their time writing more features and having to adjudicate your stupid little fights.
There is a community on Reddit that is currently at risk of being banned according to the admins. The community is a heavily moderated location to respectfully discuss controversial topics, one that is fairly insular and doesn’t advertise itself, and takes pride in respectful and nuanced discussion.
They regularly have innocuous posts removed, while nearly all posts with truly dangerous ideas stay up — we can attribute that to one-off moderation errors, but repeated threats from the admins cannot be.
The admin threats seem related to a specific issue which is not even in the top five most controversial things discussed on the subreddit. They’ve made it clear that any discussion on the topic is unacceptable, no matter how civil.
It puts a lot more burden for content moderation on the sub mods, since the community doesn't have as much ability to voice disagreement in replies (once a resident troll bans enough dissenting repliers, the only people who can reply are the remaining community minority that agree). It's also hard for the mods to detect, since they don't get any visibility to the ban system from their side. I would be hesitant to take advice on how to manage a social media communication platform at scale from anyone presiding over recent decisions at Reddit, since they seem to have equipped the most toxic users with the tools to pseudo-organically poison the well for open discussion.
Sorry for keeping it vague. The communities loves to write endless heapings of words, so I’m sure if and when it is banned, much ink will be spilled. Perhaps another member of the community will recognize which it is I am talking about (there is overlap with the HN crowd) and be able to summarize better than I.
(FWIW, if it'll save anybody else either eye strain or 5 min on Google, I ended up parsing it through Twitter Reader App to read end-to-end and print to PDF; not affiliated, never heard until 20min ago, no clue if it'll work for anybody else)
I read @yishan's thread about Twitter and agree, as I think anyone who's run a forum would, that Elon is "in for a world of pain," or at least for a type of pain both much nastier than hard engineering problems, and with far less upside as well.
Where I think he's mistaken is his claim that the left and right both want to ban each other roughly equally. Among the elite, and within Twitter specifically, there is much more inclination to ban the right.
I say this as someone whose political views, if you force them onto the left-right spectrum, probably end up about 80% toward the left. E.g. I've spent millions over the past several elections supporting the Democrats.
It used to be that censorship was something the right did, and free speech was something the left were in favor of. But over the last few decades, banning "problematic" ideas has become a huge component of left culture (http://paulgraham.com/heresy.html).
Plus tech companies in general, and especially Twitter, lean to the left. Imagine walking around Twitter pre-Covid. You'd find plenty of openly far-left employees. How many openly far-right employees would you find? I don't think you'd find any.
The combination of (a) the left's recent focus on banning heretical ideas, (b) the leftward lean of tech companies generally, and (c) the leftward lean of Twitter even among tech companies, means that right-wing speech is much more likely to get banned on Twitter than left.
That's why people on the far right keep starting lame Twitter alternatives. You don't see people on the far left doing that. They don't need to. They have Twitter.
That part is true. Their custom tunnel machines dig twice as fast as other machines.
Boring Co's tunnel machines are just customized versions of existing machines. At best they are slightly faster than they base machines, and only in specific soil conditions.
However, as demonstrated by the Hawthorn and Vegas tunnels, the Boring Co machines are, in practice/in the real world, no faster than the non-customized machines, while at the same time yielding significantly lower quality tunnels (referring to the concrete shell built to protect the excavated portion of the tunnel).
And here's the crazy thing: if Elon had actually done his research, he would have known that the "automated digger" Boring Co plans to build already exists. They're just really expensive, because digging machines are built to-spec for each project based on soil conditions. These existing machines can be powered by multiple sources, though generally they aren't electrified due to the demands on the local power grid. In a nutshell, you'd have to build a dedicated substation to handle the electricity draw; the only reason Boring Co's tunnel machines don't is because they dig small utility-sized tunnels rather than large transit-sized tunnels.
Isn't that faster than existing machines?
Even if Boring Co actually builds such machines (and given Elon's history of grandious unmet claims that's very unlikely), no. Utility-size TBMs on the market can already bore faster than the P2 hypothetically would.
The delay in tunnel boring isn't the TBM machines; it's in the other stuff like the undisclosed power lines and other utilities that the TBM will run into while boring and which must be painstakingly rerouted, or the things above the tunnel that must be accounted for. For example, LA's "regional connector" transit project has been delayed for almost 5 years because they ran into hundreds of undisclosed utility lines and pipes while digging and had to spend years rerouting those utilities before they could continue digging. Boston's Big Dig was delayed because they had to build underground bridges while tunneling to support the weight of ongoing activities above the dig, like existing rail, highways, and subways.
Note that both of the examples above are transit-size tunnels, but the issues LA Metro ran into would still apply to Boring Co's much smaller tunnels.
Really, the biggest problem with Boring Co's tunnels is that they're basically useless boondoggles: as the Vegas tunnel demonstrates, they simply don't have the capacity to handle meaningful amounts of traffic.
Control of media is the drill for mining for government subsidies, not the oil field.
Toyota made green cars a thing before Tesla. And Chevy and Nissan made EVs. Without the Prius and the EV1, there wouldn't have been a market for Tesla.
SpaceX launches rockets into space. 7 countries and 3 private companies were doing that for decades before SpaceX. SpaceX just does it cheaper. And note that SpaceX's research is almost entirely funded by government sources, and is largely just a continuation of reusable rocket research begun by NASA in the 1970s (which ended when their budget was cut by the Reagan administration).
"SpaceX's research is almost entirely funded by government sources"
I don't believe this is true. Do you have sources for this claim? The USG has purchased services from SpaceX, the income from which SpaceX has then used to develop reusability. But that's not the same thing as "the USG funding SpaceX's reusability development." In fact, the government missions initially specifically disallowed using reused boosters or Dragons.
This is such a tiring rebuttal.
Do you really believe Elon Musk is the best to lead any enterprise because of Tesla and SpaceX? I mean, they both produce great products, but aren't necessarily great places to work, nor do either have any measurable lifespan outside of the easiest money environment we've ever seen. That is to say, we don't really know how good these companies are...yet. One or the other, or both, could turn out to be investor capital burning machines. Which is to say, not great businesses. Twitter is already that.
You then try to make the case that because these companies have gotten money from the government that it discredits their successes as if another reality they might have failed. This isn't reasonable as an argument structure. In another reality, English might be spelled differently. That doesn't mean that you don't know how to spell. The argument structure is deeply unsound.
Next you demand certainty, but you restrict the range to just Tesla and SpaceX. If you were genuine in demanding certainty, you would have to expand the range to include PayPal and Zip2, since in those cases we can say things with certainty because his involvement is over and so judgements can be made. You do this, because you have to, because if you didn't that means you would have to accept plausible reasoning. Yet the measurements which incorporate plausible reasoning, such as the stock price, refute you to an extreme extent.
By stating all this with appeals like "do you really believe" and "this is such a tiring rebuttal" you trick yourself by employing rhetoric. It makes you seem to yourself as if your argument is much stronger than it actually is. After all, you are obviously right that he doesn't actually think what you implied he thought. So when you ask that question to him you already know that the answer is no he didn't think that. Unfortunately, there is a reason as far back in Western thought as Plato rhetoric was being described as the art of being convincing without being right. Beating up the straw man makes you think like your argument is correct so much so that you grow tired of it.
His company made rockets that fly backwards and park autonomously.
I had no idea. I always assumed he was inspired by SpaceX. October Sky is a great movie btw.
Blue Origin has accomplished practically nothing compared to SpaceX, even if they "landed a rocket before SpaceX". In the 7 years since New Shephard first flew, they've not flown anything new. To this date, BO has not launched a single gram into orbit.
For comparison, 7 years after Falcon 1 first flew in 2006, SpaceX had flown F9 v1.1 and had built a spacecraft that flew to the ISS.
It is not hard to imagine an alternative world where Elon Musk had nothing to do with the SpaceX company and the same achievements would have been reach. Or even an alternative world where the NASA funding would have gone to a completely different company, or—yet even—a world where NASA would have developed this technology them selfs (hiring the same experts off course).
All is to say that Elon Musk is not some essential figure in the development of VTVL rockets. Rocket engineers would have developed it regardless in any world where the Space Shuttle is sunset.
I think if it wasn’t for SpaceX this technology would still exist today, just developed by a different company (or even NASA them selfs if they were so inclined). SpaceX just happened to be the right company at the right time with the right engineers onboard to reap the benefits afterwards.
Bezos runs a successful business, is just as predatory, but doesn't try to fight Vladimir Putin. Or brag about throwing shade at Bill Gates. Or sleep on people's couch. The guy can't afford a hotel?
I question whether he actually sleeps on their couches. He may sleep in their spare bedrooms, or spare master bedrooms, or spare houses.
But possibly he's sleeping on couches—I guess I imagine it's more likely part of his business model, which mostly appears to me to be raising capital exceedingly well, getting other people to pay for his ventures. It's a hard sell to get investors to say, "Hey, I'm going to use all your money on these mansions." Much easier to say, "All the money you invest, I will spend on making you profits." In a way, his main model seems to be similar to nonprofit fundraising and in nonprofits, funders seem to hate if the people running the show look to be too wealthy, as it may appear to be a waste of funds.
But I could be off on this, just the vibe I get.
First of all there are a lot of questions about whether that story is true. And even if it was, it isn't material to Elon's success: https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-mus...
Second, what makes Elon truly remarkable is what he accomplished AFTER he made < $200 million from selling PayPal. Most of which were impossible according to conventional wisdom in the industries that he accomplished them in. Anyone who fails to recognize that, has demonstrated a complete lack of comprehension.
Key quote:
'We had so much money we couldn't even close our safe'
So, as soon as somebody cites a fact that is confirmed by an authoritative source that can be googled pretty trivially, you cease to take them seriously. Honestly, this is par for the course with Musk fans and it baffles me.
As for Musk himself, um, I'll continue to go with "rich kid gets richer due to quantitative easing, some supposed business sense albeit not much actual evidence for it, and state subsidies for most of his businesses".
It is also probably worth calling this part out too: an interview with Elon Musk is not "balanced coverage" of Elon Musk.