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The challenge with betting against Elon Musk’s business ideas is that he’s created multiple companies whose core approach experts thought wouldn’t work but became immensely successful; Tesla & SpaceX.
However he’s also delivered one of the obviously disastrous business moves ever; transforming Twitter to X.
The question is whether Tesla’s robotaxi dreams ideas are another hit idea or a sh!t one? Personally I see it as the latter.
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-robotaxi-end-to-end-ai-plan-1827e2bd
@carnage4life The other problem with betting against his businesses is that he has a legion of devotees who are willing to place the opposite bet no matter how badly he screws up, buoying his businesses through his failures and allowing him endless second chances to succeed.
Anyone could revolutionize the world with that kind of setup.
@carnage4life The question is not has someone made good decisions in the past. It is whether they are making good decisions in the present.
The fact that the board felt the need to go to the wsj b/c they were worried about drug use, I feel says everything.
If the folks closest and that have the most to lose are worried then everyone should doubt his ability to make good decisions in the present.
These types of problems don't tend to fix themselves and can get worse.
@carnage4life Twitter was a disastrous business move only if you think he bought it to make the company profitable.
He didn't.
He bought it to turn into a right wing propaganda machine, and it’s been very successfully converted.
@carnage4life Every one of his businesses follows exactly the same playbook. Build a tech that nobody else wants to build, then use his charisma to convince people to keep funding it until he figure out how to make it work.
He is no longer doing that. He is trying to take on tians who have been in the industry for decades in businesses he doesn't even understand. Betting against Elon is literally free money. xAI is just shit OpenAI, Optimus is shit Boston Dynamics, and his Robotaxi is shit Waymo. All he has going for him is his ever dwindling cult of personalities
@malwaretech @carnage4life also, he has not created Tesla, he bought into Tesla including buying the right to be called a "founder".
@rysiek @malwaretech @carnage4life Behind both Tesla and SpaceX are several truly competent individuals with vison, knowledge and drive. Empowered by access to funding and PR through Elon. Perhaps he was just lucky to find and recruit them? Or perhaps it was skill?
@percederberg I'd like to see a break down of all startups Elon invested in, and how many of them failed.
I am going to guess that the results are not going to point towards skill on his part.
@percederberg @rysiek @malwaretech @carnage4life I note that such companies have people whose jobs it is to keep Elon away from the actual tech as much as they can.
@carnage4life He didn’t create Tesla, he stole it.
@carnage4life Boring Company doesn't make money either.
SpaceX and Tesla both survived on huge US govt funding.
@mister914
I think we should give Mr. Musk lots of credit for the success of Tesla and SpaceX. No, he didn't invent them, yes, there was/is government support. But he was behind the strategy and execution that produced a mass market EV and a much cheaper launch system.
Others could have used those ideas and the government support, but they didn't make it work.
(That said, #TSLA's P/E ratio is insane for an automaker.)
@carnage4life
@mpjgregoire @carnage4life #Tesla reminds me of a company I worked for. The owner wanted to make electronic thermostats, but some marketing consultant said that sales would be too low. They made the thermostats anyways and sales were at least 4x the projection. However, the consultant and my employer didn't know that Hydro-Québec was going to give a big rebate at the point of sale to thermosats.
Tesla benefited from more luck and competent hiring than anything else.
@mpjgregoire @carnage4life IMHO, Musk's advantage is getting investors. I don't treat this highly, because it's not necessarily linked to positive traits. In other words, Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay (Enron) were great at getting investors too, but they were fraudsters. I'm not sure if Musk is a fraud yet.
@mister914
I think it's quite clear that Mr. Musk is a bit careless with rules; that often seems to be the case in Silicon Valley, for the successful and probably the unsuccessful as well.
With regard to Tesla, I think the critical thing was the strategy: the main selling point of the Model S was neither that OT was environmentally virtuous nor that it would save money; it was pitched as a high-end car. Then they pivoted to mass market. Mr. Musk made decisions that worked out.
@mister914
I haven't read that he had any role in important technical decisions for the cars, and his current strategy for Tesla seems unwise.
In the case of SpaceX, he deserves more credit. First, he put his own wealth on the line. Secondly, he decided to revolutionise rocketry by bringing down costs through re-use and iteration (i.e., they don't aim for perfection before test flights). Thirdly, he has chosen talented, ambitious workers and driven them to work obsessively hard.
@mister914
Fourthly, I think he has listened to technical arguments, asked useful questions, and made some good decisions. Apparently, when there's a technical problem, he asks the engineers to go to the physics of it, and boils it down. I heard him explain why the Super Heavy is made of stainless steel, rather than carbon fibre — he seems to know what he's talking about.
This does not mean he's a super genius, but he does have some real skills, not just trolling and patter.
1. Create the story. E.g. Twitter is the public square of 21st century. Or we have to go to Mars because too many people on Earth or capsule tubes in Thai caves
2. Hype it up. Make it seem like anyone disagreeing is simply stupid or is immoral. E.g. discredit the experts by calling them pedo.
3. Get a bunch of people's $$$. E.g. pre-orders on Cybertruck from Elmo bros
4. doesn't matter if the product is crap or gets delayed or gets cancelled... He is richer than you
@carnage4life he didn’t create these businesses though. And there are reports that his influence and direction are actively mitigated ny management to reduce harm.