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Comment by ActorNightly | Hacker News Reader

Nice Elon slop.

If you think anything Elon doing is groundbreaking, you have no idea how the world works. Recent Space X ipo showed that the launches aren't cheaper, they are just heavily subsidized. Tesla was a piece of crap until they got their model 3, the only reason Tesla succeeded with their S model is because Elon was the edgy hype dude who managed to generate enough hype to carry them through the bullshit with the car. Self driving was supposed to be solved last year, and tiny companies like Comma AI manage to build self driving systems that are in someways better than Teslas.

I bet you think Steve Jobs was a visionary as well lol.

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If not for Tesla there won't be EVs you see today. Tesla was and still is the benchmark for extremely lean car production and software stack.

If not for SpaceX there wouldn't be gigabit internet connectivity in the middle of the ocean.

You're entitled to your own opinion to hate the guy but some self reflection goes a long way.

>If not for Tesla there won't be EVs you see today.

Most manufacturers already were working on hybrids, which to this day are still suprerior to EVs. Chevy Volt, outside of being Chevy, was still one of the best cars ever made for utilitarian purpose. Nobody wanted to foot the bill to do electric conversions until this was necessary.

Tesla only opened up a market segment for high end electric cars, which I guess is cool, but far from revolutionary. The model 3 was a big success only because again, it was subsidized. Meanwhile BYD actually makes cheap affordable electric cars, and we both know why they are not sold in US.

>If not for SpaceX there wouldn't be gigabit internet connectivity in the middle of the ocean.

Plenty of companies were doing geostationary orbits with satellite connectivity. SES for one.

Any more Elon slop? You realize you are defending a dude that is literally a Nazi, right?

My response was to your statement “Give me one actual reason why a smart person would take an underpaid overworked position at any of his companies.”

I hated seeing him do the “Roman” salute and will not try to defend it. I said nothing in favor of his politics or personality, only that his companies are ambitious. Seems like you may benefit from a few deep breaths before responding with attacks.

Also, the alternative technologies you propose are pretty weak comparisons as they are of a different classes.

Your response was along the lines of "despite Musk's character, his companies do groundbreaking stuff, so in return for being overworked and underpaid, they get to work on things that no one else is working on"

My point is that none of the companies do groundbreaking stuff, and there are other options for people wanting to work at those.

I guess we’ve found the point of disagreement then. If you are disregarding the scale, then you might be able to make a case, but even then, I’m fairly certain that you would still be wrong.

Currently, nothing that any of Elons companies are doing is scaling. I don't care if someone back in 2018 wanted to work at Tesla, because of how well Model 3 was doing. Today, the colossal turd that is the Cybertruck is their flagship product, Model 2 is nowhere to be found, Cybertaxis are dangerous, and Roadster is never happening.

For SpaceX, their launches are just as expensive (if not more expensive) compared to traditional methods, they are just subsidizing it, while burning money on Starship that will never reach Mars.

So again, no smart person will ever work of any of Elons companies today based on your criteria.

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