Elon Musk’s texts shatter the myth of the tech genius | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk’s texts shatter the myth of the tech genius

theatlantic.com

23 pointselsewhen21 comments

While the article has its issues, the point about how cavalier these guys are about throwing a billion dollars at something is interesting. I have to submit dozens of pages of documentation to the federal government to get $100k, but these guys shoot a text and get a $1B.

It's their money to lose of course, but if they do this then we shouldn't take their investments in a company with too much gravity.

Why wouldn't you throw $1B to someone who's created over $1T of value from scratch?

Generous of you to overlook the 100-1000x multiple he has enjoyed.

The Atlantic's articles shatter the myth of respected media.

The Atlantic reads more and more like a college student’s Facebook post that got published.

It's easy to think of a reasonable counterpoint to this article: busy people have stuff to do. They don't waste their time writing all of their texts with perfect and flowery language, and editing and proofreading it for publishing. They just talk in the moment like many humans do and brainstorm and throw ideas at the wall. I'm sure anybody at that level could sit down and write a perfect business letter if they needed to.

Busy doing what? Posting dumb "peace plans" on Twitter?

If you view wanting to stop bloodshed as dumb, perhaps you've lost the plot.

Walk me through it. The Russian army, which has not shown any qualms about rape, torture, and murder, is given reign over a huge slice of Ukrainian territory without a fight. Am I pro-bloodshed, or are you pro-genocide? I am sorry to get personal, but this is bullshit.

I think Musk is operating under his maxim that the survival of humanity trumps all. There is a tiny risk that the war in Ukraine escalates into a global nuclear war. Thus, from the point of view of the maxim, any and all sacrifices are valid if they mitigate this risk to nothing.

The problem, which I don't think Musk sees clearly, is that the outcome of this war has larger implications than just the fate of Ukraine. Other authoritarian nations, including China, are observing with keen interest how the conflict pans out. These nations, like Russia, follow a behavioral pattern of exploiting perceived weakness. An unlikely nuclear war avoided today at the cost of letting Russia win does significantly increase the risk of world war and thus nuclear war 7-15 years down the road.

Only three paragraphs until Trump's name is mentioned incidentally.

Title should read "Elon Musk’s texts show he talks like everyone else".

News flash: privileged Atlantic 30-something writer from Bryn Mawr, who went to Hamilton College and has one book that he coauthored, considers Elon Musk not very smart.

[1] https://fact-wiki.com/charlie-warzel/

The “journalists” at these outlets are rarely accomplished. They excel at ranting about others.

Breaking: A CEO of a very successful company is a human being

Good point. Why enrich them beyond other human beings? One of billions is a much more reasonable view of who they are.

Because they’ve created immense value, jobs, and progress from which other human beings have benefited and will continue to benefit for years to come. Not sure why this is so hard to understand.

So “think of the greater good” hokum?

You have the spoken traditions memorized, that’s for sure.

I don’t even know what that means.

These people have delivered immense value on multiple levels. Removing the incentive for doing so would be discourage others. I would like to see more Teslas, more founders, and more progress - not less.

If their output does not improve the lives of others and society around them, then it’s certainly an issue. Otherwise I’m not concerned with their wealth and would be happy to see it grow as a biproduct of their continue effort.

Almost all of these billionaires' net worth is in stocks; that is, in their (part) ownership of companies. Redistributing their wealth is the same as taking ownership of their companies away from them. In that direction lies the Soviet Union.

So we could let them keep their stocks and not trade them for dollars; they own 100% of their company and the public is no longer obliged to acknowledge outsiders have ephemeral value beyond their direct contribution to society.

Demanding we believe in ephemeral property is spoken tradition not an immutable truth of reality. I am not saying we have to redistribute their wealth; I’m saying we stop idolizing wealth. Especially when tax policy and direct cash infusions from government is keeping these guys afloat. It’s not free market trade. Look at their tune change as soon as free money is shut off with interest rate changes; it’s not them it’s political policy. They’re not actually rich.

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