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Scott Alexander’s review of a 2015 biography of Elon Musk. Elon Musk, to me, is one of the world’s most confusing people. He’s simultaneously both one of the smartest people in the world, creating billions of dollars of value in companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and one of the dumbest, in burning billions on Twitter. Scott’s review I think is a good explanation of what’s up with Musk.
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On twitter I have seen the likes of Cernovich and others claim Elon is among the smartest people on earth, if not the smartest. He's smart, no doubt, but to be among the smartest would put him in the company of Fields Medalists, math Olympiad and Putnam winners, math and physics doctorates, etc. Possible but very improbable, imho. He's smart but not that smart. He benefited from luck and good business savvy and intuition about markets, all necessary ingredients for business success. The Twitter Blue verification system did not stop spam, as I and others correctly predicted (when scammers can make $1000s in a day , how is $8 a deterrent). Maybe he was not smart enough to see that, or he did not care.
What do we mean by smart at this level?
I recall some Yudkowsky post talking about how excessive fixation on the definition of intelligence was unhelpful. If it runs away and makes a Dyson Swarm, then it's intelligent regardless of whether its conscious or not... If Musk can show up and start a bunch of multi-billion dollar technology companies, then he must be very smart. Intelligence is about making things happen, not solving tests. Who cares about maths Olympiad or Putnam winners? Are they as smart as Elon? I vote no, it doesn't matter if they are better at advanced mathematics or certain kinds of rareified, abstract problems. Who cares? Elon solved a bunch of problems in the real world, where it matters. Even if it's just managerial talent, that alone puts him far ahead of nearly all physicists.
Why try to distinguish business savvy, market intuition, management, perseverance and determination from intelligence?
If there is a tallest man in the word, it stands to reason there must be a smartest, or at least some people who are candidates for being the smartest. Is it Elon? probably not. Does it matter? Given his success, not at all . But I am not the one making that claim he is the smartest. Elon made a lot of money and did a lot of cool things, , but so did Google founders, Bezos, Gates, and Zuck...they are self-made (or had some parent's help ) and have very valuable companies. Elon founded many companies, but these are not statistically independent events. if you limit your pool to people in tech who founded billion-dollar companies, you still end up with a lot of people who are all pretty smart, but is Elon the smartest? Statistically speaking, likely not.
he may have solved a coordination problem, but did he code the AI for a Tesla self-driving car or does he understand the code as well as someone who coded it? probably not
Being the smartest is more like being the strongest than the tallest.
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