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I don’t even understand these arguments. The motte for Elon Musks is he’s the most important person of the 21st century to date and the most important engineer since probably 1900. Electric cars didn’t exists before him. I believe he’s the only person to start a car company from scratch in a 100 years without state backing. Rockets had completely had no advance for 60 years before him. His satellite internet is an entirely new industry. He’s also the first backer of openAI which is like Microsoft’s entire bet the company bet.
Bill Gates invented a computer operating system and excel. Steve Jobs improved smart phone tech that already existed and created an animation company. Also competed in computers. Musks accomplishments seem above these two guys.
What is the Bailey for Elon Musks? He’s literally god or at a minimum a comic book super hero here to save mankind?
The motte for him is no reason to dump Musks as an ally. There is no human on earth I would prefer as an ally.
Ok, well that, to me, is the Bailey. Upon interrogating the arguments, the Motte ends up being something like "Ok he's hyped up, but he still innovated a lot of stuff" or "But look at how much his companies are worth".
The hell they didn't. They were driving around golf courses for decades before that. People didn't drive them on roads before, because it might no economic sense, and here's the kicker: we still don't know if it makes any economic sense. They're being hyped and subsidized by tech enthusiasts, and clueless green activists, in a futile attempt to do something about global warming, and despite that they're not really enticing when compared to ICE cars.
A completely meaningless achievement, if it's based on promises he will never deliver on, and his company ends up crashing.
Reusability is not a fundamental advancement, it was always a question of whether it's worth the effort, and again, it's even less clear that it is, then in the case of electric cars, since we have no insight into the costs.
I hope you're right, and I end up looking like an idiot, but don't say I didn't warn you, if I don't.
I feel like this is maximally negative on huge accomplishments.
And you can do the same thing for Steve Jobs. He invented nothing. Animation and smart phones existed before him. The gap between electric cars and electric golf carts is far more than BlackBerry to Apple. You can always repeat that’s not a big accomplishment. But I think those are big accomplishments.
I'd be happy to! I hate Apple and all it's products! They did invent nothing, all their products are hype, and people willing to pay a premium to look high-status. If someone tried to paint Jobs as a once-in-a-century innovator I'd be on their ass too. But the difference between Jobs and Musk is that Jobs company is sustainable in a way that Musk's will prove not to be. I think he also tended to deliver the products he announced, but I can't say I followed him very closely.
I am curious why are you so driven to go after Musks? I get vibes that are the same as Holocaust Deniers. Where you might be right he’s overrated compared to popular opinion similarly like how a HC might be correct deaths were a good bit lower than reported but the whole obsession with it is backed by a deep hatred of Jews.
My impression is that he believes both that Musk is likely to fail, that his failures are going to be catastrophic for the interests of the people supporting him, and that the resulting risk profile is not properly appreciated by his supporters, who are backing him because they confuse memes for reality. This seems like an entirely reasonable thing to be concerned about, and comparing it to holocaust denial seems pretty inflammatory.
That’s the thing. I don’t think it’s a reasonable opinion at all. The guy has founded three different companies with huge market values. SpaceX trades hands at over $200 billion in private markets, Tesla has a public market value of over $200 billion, OpenAI has a weird market structure as a nonprofit but if was a normal corporate probably would have trades happening at over $200 billion market cap. Now I don’t necessarily need to agree with the valuations specifically, but I do believe in some form of the efficient market. Trying to say he’s a loser when there is fairly obvious signs that he’s very well accomplished. I can see the market being irrational short term but 2 of these firms have been trading >$100 billion for over 3 years.
That’s the only position that I see that feels similar to me.
For the record @FCfromSSC is 100% right about my motivation. The difference between me and Holocaust deniers is that I hope I'm wrong. Like I said my pride is a small price to pay for getting to see Earth from orbit, before I die.
Since you brought it up, I'll also ping @Belisarius - this is why my arguments sounded like they're about financial analysis.
Look, my entire point is that the value of his companies is propped up by promises of crazy technologies he's not going to deliver on. When that becomes apparent to the public, it's over, they're crashing. OpenAI is probably exempted, but does he have any actual control over it? I thought it was all Sam Altman.
Elon was long ago pushed out of OpenAI. But this is not important for the exceptional influence he had on the course of multiple industries. That he funded/cofounded OpenAI in the first place is crazy. Most industry leaders have one career, a few gifted talents hit multiple homeruns (Jobs with Apple, NextStep and Pixar, then Apple again), but Musk makes it seem like he plays a videogame for which he has cheat codes.
For the same reason all his endeavors can now crash and burn and it wouldn’t matter:
Tesla kickstarted the electric car revolution, but it is not on their shoulders to finish it. That Elon memed other car companies kicking & screaming into a future where e-cars are not anymore a mere novelty, but instead seen as inevitable, and we now have the technology and infrastructure in place (superchargers and more and more battery factories) to transition away from fossil fuels, this is the real legacy.
Similar SpaceX could be run into the ground and Elon still would have changed with it the space industry forever. Here is a quote from a recent Washington Post article (which complains that SpaceX is too successful):
You tried to argue that Blue Origin (or others) could leapfrog SpaceX, but in the (unlikely) case this happens this would not discredit Musk, instead this would be a triumph as his competitors would either not exist or wouldn’t be as good as without him.
On a technological level SpaceX did absolutely bonker things: Landing rockets? Landing rockets on a drone ship far away in the ocean? Using Methan as propellant? Using cheap steel? Proofing that the failed Soviet N1 concept is viable with modern tech (many inexpensive small engines instead of few big expensive engines), eliminating landing legs and instead trying to catch Starship?
Other rocket companies, Europe and China will have to copy them.
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