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dmw_ng

Dorsey is an engineer

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And so is Musk.

He went to business school.

Since when?

Watch this walk around Starbase with Elon and Tim Dodd, and you'll get a pretty good sense that he has an engineering brain that really understands the complexities of design, build and execute more than anything. https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw

I will watch it, but is he the same the “engineering” brain that thinks his Tesla tunnels are a good idea, continually promises tech that is decades away from realization is right around the corner (like self-driving cars or a humanoid robot or a Mars mission), and got replaced as the runner of the actual engineering organization (SpaceX)?

Elon clearly overpromises - but he also over delivers. SpaceX's current capability to deliver payloads to orbit is so far ahead of anyone else (particular considering they started from scratch only 20 years ago). Even their Starlink in just a few years had leapfrogged over incumbent providers. Tesla may not have achieved all they have promised but there is no denying they are the company that is leading innovation in not only EV but even in their approach to manufacturing.

> but he also over delivers

My family has had reservations for the Roadster, the Cybertruck, and we have a first-edition Model 3 & X.

Tesla has overpromised on all of our reservations, and the final product, imo, is not "overdelivering". It's honestly just barely "delivering".

>but even in their approach to manufacturing.

This is pure Tesla propaganda. Yes they have built bigger versions of existing technology (supepress, gigafactory), but they're definitely not leading innovation in car production, as evidenced by M3s still having the largest panel gaps in the industry.

Well, I am not an Elon Musk fan or hater and I don’t own any Tesla product. However, I think if your standard for him is “he hasn’t delivered yet on the two brand new proposed models of high-priced EVs that my family has reservations to buy”—I can tell you that I can’t drive 2 minutes without seeing several Teslas, I can see strings of Starlink satellites sometimes when I look into the sky, and at least a couple of times a month I can see SpaceX launches from my backyard.

Seems to me Musk may not be delivering on what you want, which I suggest is a couple of items serving a tiny elite market, but no doubt he is delivering something.

I’ll take a loose lipped dreamer that eventually delivers on most of his promises in a spectacular way over a buttoned down PR rep that consistently goes over budget, pushes delivery dates by years and drops a disappointing and outdated product at the end any day.

Apparently since 1984, when he won a prize for writing a computer game at 12 years old: https://blastar-1984.appspot.com/

That makes him an engineer?

Admittedly, no. But, in addition to that, he has a Physics degree from UPenn and was accepted to a PhD program in MechE at Stanford, was co-founder of X.com, is Chief Engineer at SpaceX, and has some of the most respected people in their respective fields (some of whom have worked closely with him) vouch for his engineering chops (Andrej Karpathy[0], John Karmack[1], Gareth Reisman[2], an astronaut and Professor of Astronautics Practice at USC, Jim Keller[3]).

Unless you present your engineering qualifications that are of equivalent credibility as that of the aforementioned people, as well as present evidence that you've worked with him as closely with Elon Musk as some of these folks have, I'll stick with my conclusion that, yes, he's indubitably an engineer.

[0]: https://youtu.be/PlLmdTcsAWU?t=1439

[1]: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200...

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNG6ZzDh9C8&t=390s, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/26/spacex...

[3] https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1225875212559933442?la...

not at all, but javascript programmers cant or dont want to make such distinctions

Is the work you do to your credit or your boss's? I fundamentally reject the argument that being financially invested in engineering projects makes him an engineer.

I'm of the opinion that engineering things is what makes someone an engineer. If you're under the impression that Musk's entire career has been in management, I'd encourage you to do some more reading.

I’d encourage you to do the same.

Give concrete examples.

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200...

https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20

https://www.quora.com/Elon-Musk/How-did-Elon-Musk-learn-enou...

Jim Keller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=4851s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3854s

There are many other examples that can be found by just doing a quick search.

But it seems that some individuals even refuse to do so. They would rather stick to their strong (sometimes objectively flawed) opinions. Which is totally fine. Everyone is entitled to.

It's just embarrassingly bad when they try to regurgitate it to others and continue to double down. Even when presented with irrefutable data or new information.

That’s fine you think that, but do you have anything that isn’t the same third party anecdotes that get repeated as nauseam? At least one of those is by an extremely unreliable narrator and an Elon sycophant and one of the others by another who thinks he’s knows everything as well.

> but do you have anything that isn’t the same third party anecdotes that get repeated as nauseam?

First, can you give a "concrete example" on what you consider as a "concrete example"?

Because so far, I've only seen name calling and flippant remarks from you. I'm honestly trying to understand where you're coming from.

That way, we can start from a place of understanding. Instead of going in circles and you moving the goal post.

I could have predicted half of those tired examples. They’re all third party anecdotes and the same ones that get passed around and regurgitated. There’s also third-party anecdotes of Elon having no idea what he’s talking about, and several first-party arguments he’s made that shows he’s a bit of a charlatan.

None of those examples you gave are concrete.

Here's the game he wrote at age 12 : https://blastar-1984.appspot.com/

The most charitable interpretation is that this does nothing to disprove the perception he is simply taking credit for others engineering work. At best it is not proof he played a significant role on the engineering side of the projects he's financed. At worst, it is very much playing into the stereotype of the manager who got far too grand ideas of his talent from writing code 30 years ago.

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