Comment by andrewtbham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrewtbham | Hacker News Reader

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You dismiss Musk's accomplishments because he has so many of the "best minds" working for him. That is exactly the wrong way to look at it. Go out and try to recruit someone who is brilliant. You will see it's a non-trivial task.

Furthermore the reason I believe him to be the most significant entrepreneur of all time is this... No one that I know of... has taken progressively larger fortunes and bet them on such high risk venture. No one ever has done that... Most people would have retired after zip2. Even a highly driven person would have probably become a venture capitalist after paypal... like Peter Thiel did. Also, no one that I know has come so publicly to the brink of failure and succeeded like Elon did in 2008. The underlying reason is no one has vision like he does. Going to Mars, and accelerating the transition to electric vehicles are huge ideas... The vision of going to Mars alone is in the same league as JFK and going to the moon. And that's just 1/2 of what is working on.

Howard Hughes effectively did these things, in terms of constantly leveraging his fortune into extreme risk to push numerous businesses forward.

Hughes' companies technical accomplishments were vast. In many ways he was Musk, before Musk. His were among the first companies to work in space, and was prodigious in aviation and aerospace. I would argue Hughes exceeded what Musk has accomplished by a dramatic margin - so far.

Eg:

"The company developed radar systems, electro-optical systems, the first working laser, aircraft computer systems, missile systems, ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), and many other advanced technologies."

"Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division built the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom, in 1963 and followed it closely with the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966. Later that year their Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the Moon as part of the lead-up to the moon landings in Project Apollo."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Aircraft_Company

I don't know a lot about Howard Hughes, but there are some obvious parallels. They were both maverick entrepreneurs in multiple industries, and both in aerospace.

However, Elon Musk started from very humble beginnings, whereas Hughes was born into a fortune. Also, Elon's story is not finished. He has really just scratched the surface. If Tesla continues as a niche car manufacturer and Space X doesn't create re-usable rockets, then Elon will not be even in the top 10 most important entrepreneurs. But if his vision comes to fruition... If in 20 years, all cars are electric and supplied by giga-factories or competitive clones. If super-charger technology is a standard like 120V electrical outlets... If we have re-usable rockets. If space x provides global satellite internet access to earth and Mars. If we have a colony of 1 million people on Mars... Then Elon will be the most epic entrepreneur of all time. The compelling thing is his vision and the trajectory of his success.

> You dismiss Musk's accomplishments because he has so many of the "best minds" working for him. That is exactly the wrong way to look at it. Go out and try to recruit someone who is brilliant. You will see it's a non-trivial task.

That's exactly it. We always speak about solo founders and co-founders...because you need to show that you can "convince others of your vision." Musk has done this with some of the best minds. He pulled them together.

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