what's Elon smart at though? so i can learn..

Nevermark 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

Despite his mad and destructive social and political side, as an engineer and business man he is extremely smart and effective.

He makes lots of unnecessary major and cringy mistakes in both engineering and business too, but his net on both counts is astounding.

And while he may overuse it for PR, he has put himself at great financial risk when pushing through major capability developments and business hurdles. His rewards were earned.

But the sick picture of the richest person in the world, spamming stupidity, and harming countless numbers of people's lives in order to prop up his juvenile ego is hard to look past for many. For good reason.

He is a strong mix of both extremes of capability/impact spectrum, not just one.

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decimalenough 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reality distortion. Financial shenanigans. Hiring people who can execute.

And, despite all the haters, he does understand rocket science pretty well, and rocket economics even better.

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habinero 7 days ago | parent [-]

Eh, not really. He managed to hire people who can manage him well enough to get him out of the way.

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decimalenough 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Spin it any way you like, but he's still hiring people who deliver.

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habinero 6 days ago | parent [-]

It's not really spin. He's the wallet, not the talent.

	▲	decimalenough 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		So why did Bezos get nowhere with Blue Origin despite throwing more money at it? Or every car manufacturer that tried to build EVs before Tesla? Or every satellite internet provider before Starlink?

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mensetmanusman 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Apparently nearly zero people can do this.

	▲	stockresearcher 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		(2012) https://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/spring2012/feature/roc... > Shotwell had lunch with a co-worker who had just joined the then-startup company SpaceX. They walked by the cubicle of CEO Elon Musk. “I said, ‘Oh, Elon, nice to meet you. You really need a new business developer,’” Shotwell recalls. “It just popped out. I was bad. It was very rude.” Or just bold enough to capture Musk’s attention. He called her later that day in 2002 and recruited her to be vice president of business development, his seventh employee. Can you imagine something like that working today?

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jlarocco 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've heard he's pretty smart at making money.

	▲	tonyedgecombe 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		The recent Tesla figures indicate otherwise.

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vkou 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Politics. Not the kind of politics that makes people like you, but the kind of politics that gives you power.