Comment by throwaway6497 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway6497 | Hacker News Reader

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I think we tend to overuse the word visionary quite a bit these days in the industry. Have you read the book by other Twitter founder who was ousted? He paints a different picture of Jack. Jack is no slouch but a visionary? He is not in the same league as Elon Musk. Jack is a hipster in a suit; he is smart and has carefully crafted his public persona (probably inspired by Jobs and modeled his persona after his ideas). Simple ideas can be powerful and can touch millions of lives. That doesn't make the person who initially came up with idea or some variant of it a visionary. On that metric, Evan Spiegel is a visionary too.

We should collectively be critical about how loosely we tend to use superlatives and not base the stories spun by PR machinery to qualify a person or her work. Elon Musk has invested his money, ideas, energy into - Making solar one of largest sources of clean energy - An electric car which is not a joke and probably better than a BMW M5 to drive, self-driving cars? - Satellites to cover entire land on earth with wifi - A plan to go to Mars and setup a camp there - A plan for rapid transit through tubes. Opensourced design blue-prints. - SpaceX

He is not dead and he has long way to go. We should reserve the word visionary for people like him. Let us be honest.

You don't have to be Elon Musk to be a "product visionary". It's simply someone who's good at envisioning new products. They don't all have to save the planet (and Musk is standing on the shoulders of giants with his).

We should also be careful not to base our impressions on sensational stories spun by disgruntled ex-employees who've gone on to do jack squat. Not a lot of "hipsters in a suit" have gone on to found a second multi-billion dollar company (Square). Sure, we can debate how good a business Square is but it's clearly in "visionary" product territory. It changed its industry.

> It's simply someone who's good at envisioning new products

We risk running out of superlatives if we take that attitude. Can we reserve 'visionary' for those 'once in a generation' types and not degrade it to mean 'competent product manager'.

Objecting to someone calling Jack Dorsey a visionary because you believe its hyperbole and then calling him a "competent product manager" seems just as, if not more disingenuous.

Other than what I've read here I don't really know who Jack Dorsey is.

My point was based on the grandparent's own words: "You don't have to be Elon Musk to be a 'product visionary'. It's simply someone who's good at envisioning new products" which sounds to me like an abasement of the English language.

This reminds me of another battle I have apparently lost. Companies that have a "vision".

No you probably don't. You might have a plan, a goal or an ethos but with the exception of a small handful of companies- if you claim your's has a 'vision' then you're deluded or incurably pretentious.

I could just about live with 'mission' as at least that doesn't sound like you're claiming divine providence.

(If it's not immediately obvious that I'm British, bear our famed dislike of overstatement in mind. However plenty of UK companies seem to spout this nonsense: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3A.co.uk+"our+vision" )

Calling someone who's "good at envisioning" a "visionary" is pretty straightforward English.

I'm simply arguing that the meaning used to be reserved for really exceptional - now it's anyone with a product plan past next Tuesday.

Elon also has a well crafted public persona. He's still visionary but easy to tell a lot of thought went in to how he presents himself.

A few interviews with his brother Kimbal takes Elon down a notch, in a fun brotherly way. Kimbal is the more natural and affable of the two.

I'm with you, but don't do this. Musk is regarded a god here. Only criticize Musk with throwaway accounts.

I own a significant amount of tesla stock and stand to benefit from Elon musk-hype. But I have to admit I'm pretty tired of it. There are other people who dream about and do things you know.

"Visionary" is this generation's "Genius"

Anyone slightly out of the ordinary is saddled with that tag.

Well said.

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