But beyond that, I feel like in terms of what he's doing Musk is some sort of time traveller, back from the future to boost humanity's progress.
Why is he such an outlier? What can we as individuals learn from him? And more importantly, how do we make more Elon Musks?
I absolutely think there is something to learn from his approach, though I think he has much in common with other highly successful people. My old boss actually had a similar attitude and she accomplished amazing things in her life. In the same way the person you replied to was describing, she would say she was going to do something and people would go "yeah sure." And then she would do them. It seemed like bullshit, then it was real.
First and foremost, it's not about money or opportunity, those are just amplifiers. Without the money it wouldn't be Mars, it would be a local bike co-op. The magic is in an attitude that is low on fear, high on hope, unconcerned what others will think, and always reaching for the most awesome outcome, right on the edge of what seems possible. My old boss had a moment where her son had just started working mall retail, then suddenly he was meeting the CEO and becoming a brand ambassador. She said "he's starting to realize he can do awesome shit," like she was Obi-wan teaching Luke about the force. Most people have set an artificial cap on their potential and accomplishments by believing that the world is a harsh and shit place and that something truly good happening is an impossibility. And then all the opportunities to change their world in big and small ways sail right on past them.
Put another way, I think it's about learning how to be a creator of new realities and not just living in other people's realities.
People are biased towards simple explanations of the world so they're biased towards either either Musk is amazing or Musk sucks. The reality is that he's a great enterpreneur but shitty human being.
The thing is, Elon Musk is emotionally immature. He's extremely thin-skinned and narcissistic. He likes to take revenge. There's a difference between firing someone because it will help the project and doing it because you're angry and it will make you feel good.
These traits (some might say virtues) are limitations on what I can accomplish. People without these limitations are often perceived as assholes, but with the right combination of other traits/virtues, they can really do great things.
That's how I see it anyway. I'm not making excuses for myself, and I still intend to do something great, but I don't have expectations of changing the world or being the greatest.
Empathy can be a hurdle in making the right decisions, for example firing a low performing employee. You could argue that someone who takes pleasure in the pain of others could be a better leader. Possibly. But first, I would still find them repulsive and second, I think you can be both decent and a good leader who makes the right decisions. Personally if I were in a leadership position I would try to "hack" my emotions and convince myself that e.g. firing someone who doesn't do a good job is a good thing overall.
I love Miles Davis' music. Love it.
And by multiple accounts, Miles was probably a bad person.
Can I love his music while not loving the man? How do I reconcile that?
I still don't know.
Einstein was, by all accounts I've seen, a pretty nice fellow. Being an asshole isn't a required characteristic.
Sub in Tony Hsieh, or Costco's CEO, if you prefer. Both are known for being particularly protective of their employees' well being.
Except to his wife.
You take rich families from apartheid states that made their wealth of gems trade & slavery, get the kids excited about space, and give them a world-class education and a huge supply of slaves mining cobalt in africa.
Bezos is rich. He started a rocket company. Blue Origin has done nowhere near what spacex has done, and that difference isn't down to just throwing money at a problem.
Don't get me wrong, throwing money at the problem is important, but it's just one ingredient.
There are some rich people who have made a difference -- Bill Gates comes to mind as someone that put money and effort in. Chuck Feeney on the "throw money at a problem" side.
But for every Bill Gates there's a Larry Elison, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergy Brin, and dozens more that don't seem to do much.
When it comes to the next generation down, it's even rarer to find kids who are driven to make such a success.
As student he is said to have hosted parties for students in a house he and a fellow student had rented to pay for the rent (same source).
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/elon-musk-ran-a-nightclub-ou...
Soon you'll have an army of geniuses building that cool space utopia for billionaires while the rest of us can stay in the dying world they left us. Our NeuraLink(tm) units will get us through the day, rewarding mining enough rare earth metals with dopamine hits and pain suppression! (That, that was irony. I hope it'll still be funny in 50 years).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/iivbk5/elon_m...
I wonder why his family got out of South Africa as soon as the apartheid ended and hasn't got back since at least once tho.
Cloning. Which he's probably already working on.
Also the guy is methodical about it. He starts with first principles. That also plays a big part.
And he takes risks. Not just risks with his money, but risks with everything he has going on. And calculated risks.
You don't make more people like him, you can't. People like that make themselves.
If I had to pick amongst the exorbitantly wealth, without any serious research I'd say we need more people like Bill Gates.
0. https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-building-military-rocke...
https://fin.plaid.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-o...
Its easy to call them luxury cars now, in hindsight, now that Elon Musk started the tech revolution that brought us full electric cars and a disrupted auto industry.
That's not to point out that "a payment processing website" made the lives of millions of people easier, as will global wireless high speed internet and cheap, civilian access to space.
I think you have an axe to grind, and it is clouding your ability to think rationally. There's a rule on this site that you're supposed to add to the discussion. I kindly request that you follow it.
The man has no wealth outside the companies he has built. There’s no cash just sitting in an account that he’s withholding from the poor cowering masses.
He’s put every penny of his net worth into building companies which he believes will tremendously benefit humanity. From sustainable personal transportation, to clean energy, to space exploration, to human augmentation.
If you think other things would be good for humanity, I encourage you to devote every waking hour of your life to pushing technological progress in those areas which you feel would be beneficial.
If he never created SpaceX, Tesla, Boring, Neurolink, and just called it quits after PayPal he would have $180 million, let’s say he donates $160mm and funds the Red Cross for ~2 weeks. How is this better?
In the meantime he’s parlayed $180mm into over $150 billion of value by significantly advancing technological progress in several major areas of global human concern.
Also, of course those companies pay salaries and other companies. A lot of wealth was created for society.
Not to mention the beneficial effects of the operations. Teslas have started as luxury cars, but they have clearly paved the way for electric cars for everyone. And while electric cars by themselves won't save the climate, without them, we could not save the climate.
Very soon a lot of people are going to enjoy fast internet across the globe, that is a very tangible benefit for every single customer and a lot of economic growth will be enabled by that, especially in countries which are currently lacking communications infrastructure.
SpaceX is an amazing company made up of some incredibly talented people, and that includes the sales and marketing department.
Falcon 1 Launch Vehicle Payload User's Guide (Revision 7, May 2008):
https://web.archive.org/web/20110617025305/http://www.spacex...
Falcon 9 User's Guide (August 2020):
https://www.spacex.com/media/Falcon_Users_Guide_082020.pdf
Starship User's Guide Revision 1.0 (March 2020):
https://web.archive.org/web/20200404100917/https://www.space...
Its not really a user guide though. More like a brief, very high-level technical spec. Marketing material.
We went from "this guy is nuts" to "oh yeah this is probably going to happen." When Tesla first came into public view, the idea that a car entirely electric powered that drives itself developed by a brand new car company was ridiculous to most people. This guy just said it matter of factly and everyone just kinda said OK dude. Then it happened. Then he said that there was going to be a rocket that lands itself, run privately. Then he says that they are going to build a human settlement on mars. Then worldwide high speed satellite internet. Now you can actually get it in some places. Now, they're going to high altitude test this giant rocket that will be able to carry 100 people tomorrow morning.
100 people. That's insane. Everything this guy says he's going to do is insane, the timelines are insane, but now everyone is kind of like "yeah, sounds about right" as if the world has always been like this. In 20 years this guy and all the engineers he hired have done absolutely incredible things that we take for granted. Tomorrow they're going to perform a high altitude test of a rocket designed to take 100 people to mars. I just read a user manual for an interplanetary spacecraft with the capacity of a small commercial airliner. I'm glad to be alive in this age.