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I’d say that’s impressive for a high schooler. Initiative, follow through and results.
Not opening LLCs you do not know what to do with is also more of "good impulse control" sign.
> being a business titan requires a different particular set of skills, skills this guy apparently has.
Just about the only thing he has is lack of ethics and morals. Lack of care for harm he causes. Yes, those are necessary to be a tech titan, but not nearly sufficient.
There are many low level guys without much ethics that never ever become tech titans.
To your point, as a society, we have an actual filter for people like that, but that filter was not been uniformly applied.
Why are we discussing the initiative in the first place? Isn’t this once again shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.
We live in the era AFTER stuxnet for crying out loud.
Can you clarify what you meant? From reading the article I gathered that his attempts to start a business didn’t produce anything and his attempt to join someone else’s company resulted quickly in him getting fired for leaking private info to a competitor.
That last point is extremely alarming for someone who was just given access to core government data. Any adversaries looking for an insider to corrupt are definitely taking note.
When did "profitable" become the sole metric by which we judge someone's work? Does what is morally correct factor into it at all, or should the impressiveness someone's accomplishments make them a "titan" regardless of intent or outcome?
You’re quoting a sentence with two adjectives.
> should the impressiveness someone's accomplishments make them a "titan" regardless of intent or outcome?
For a teenager? Barring violence, yes. An impressive, misguided teenager is a net asset to a community and society in the developed world.
I challenge anyone intelligent to honestly say they didn’t have any really stupid opinions or worldviews before their prefrontal cortex had finished developing.
There's also a very large unspoken piece left out of your sentence, which is that they are an asset if taught and guided well. Do you think Musk is likely to do that, or to instead encourage careless "technically impressive and profitable" behavior without regard to ethics or morals?
Were you on Twitter?
I don’t remember anything that heinous. But I do remember telling off-colour jokes. If I’d done that in public and received validation from someone I respected and admired, is it implausible I’d have gone down the rabbit hole?
> unspoken piece left out of your sentence, which is that they are an asset if taught and guided well
That’s my point. These kids show potential. It’s being squandered for the short-term gains of old men.
The point is we have multiple layers of society working to turn small dumb things young men say and do into very dumb things.
> We’re wasting our youth on the fever dreams of old men.
Usually there are negative consequences for stupid actions.
Teenager has been on positive feedback loop for possibly ”not so good actions”. How difficult it is to turn the tide?
The guy didn't, and no one stopped him from collecting the very same data he could be using or will use to blackmail or worse.
Sorry to note that political allegiance beats common sense.
When humans learned to domesticate other humans.
...did we read the same article? It sounds like he was a failed script kiddie that registered some vanity domains, had exactly one job that he was promptly fired form.
Where are you setting the bar for "deserves to be a titan of society"?
"rivage couldnt print hello world"
Granted, some of it may be sour grapes, but those are supposedly other kiddies he worked with at the time.
It is super possible none of those are in his future. Trumps administration wont pursue him and whatever remains after them will likely ignore this kid. I mean, it would be fair and great if these all got some kind of punishment, but it is unlikely to ever happen.
> DOGE, at a smaller scale in every respect, reminds one of the arrogance of Europe’s WWI leaders.
What exactly you mean there? This does not strikes me as similar to WWI.
We've seen Trump dismiss people before, sure, but we've known for years that the administration has been pre-vetting people as Trump loyalists[3], planning who will become head of what department and why, which executive orders to move on right at the start of the presidency. This suggests Musk is not a casual appointment and advisers will advise Trump not to dismiss him casually.
And, apart from literal death, what does he have to fear with hundreds of billions and two companies to fall back on? For all my criticism I am not expecting Trump to pull a full Putin, confiscate X, SpaceX and Tesla and send Musk to Camp Guantanmo or have him die by falling out a window. Are you?
[1] https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/elon-musk-has-said-he...
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38315682
[3] this was 2023: https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presid... "Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents. The screening for ready-to-serve loyalists has already begun, driven in part by artificial intelligence from tech giant Oracle, contracted for the project."
Not having those anymore. With the new emergency powers Trump has claimed, he could shut down every company of Musk’s except X. Depending on how bad the breakup is, that could be on the table. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Just thinking of Musk's behaviour, if he felt that was a real possibility wouldn't he be walking on eggshells? Instead he acts like he feels untouchable.