Re:Who's Afraid of Peter Thiel? A New Biography Suggests We ...
by dangus on Thursday March 06, 2025 @10:22AM
(#43281261)
All your GM example proves is that mediocre and below-average leadership gets propped up all the time, which reinforces my point rather than detracts from it. The hard part for Musk wasn’t to be innovative or be a great manager, the hard part was getting money from the government the first time. And that wasn’t anywhere near difficult in 2008 when the US government was throwing cash at automotive startups left and right via the ATVM program.
While ATVM was known for other automotive startup failures it also led to the Nissan Leaf thanks to the battery plant in Tennessee, and it led to Ford’s EV and hybrid programs along with a turnaround. Most of the more established recipients of funding came out with positive results, and that includes Tesla, which was much further along than other smaller startups who received the loans. They got to develop the Model S on the cheap.
I disagree that success in multiple industries is meaningful. My 401k is successful in every industry. Big whoop. Again, Elon’s companies with few exceptions all have a commonality of government contracts/assistance which all stems from Tesla’s unexpected success giving him a positive relationship with the government. Networking and capital, not strength of management. Survivorship bias, not excellence in management.
He has never proved himself at turning around struggling companies like so many storied managers that I read about in business school, e.g., Steve Jobs. His most recent “turnaround story” is Twitter, buying a company and making it smaller while building the conditions for competitors to pick up marketshare (Threads, BlueSky, Reddit’s IPO and traffic explosion, and up next is Digg).
Grok isn’t competitive with OpenAI because their revenue and customer list is a fraction of the size. They are squarely behind Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.
While ATVM was known for other automotive startup failures it also led to the Nissan Leaf thanks to the battery plant in Tennessee, and it led to Ford’s EV and hybrid programs along with a turnaround. Most of the more established recipients of funding came out with positive results, and that includes Tesla, which was much further along than other smaller startups who received the loans. They got to develop the Model S on the cheap.
I disagree that success in multiple industries is meaningful. My 401k is successful in every industry. Big whoop. Again, Elon’s companies with few exceptions all have a commonality of government contracts/assistance which all stems from Tesla’s unexpected success giving him a positive relationship with the government. Networking and capital, not strength of management. Survivorship bias, not excellence in management.
He has never proved himself at turning around struggling companies like so many storied managers that I read about in business school, e.g., Steve Jobs. His most recent “turnaround story” is Twitter, buying a company and making it smaller while building the conditions for competitors to pick up marketshare (Threads, BlueSky, Reddit’s IPO and traffic explosion, and up next is Digg).
Grok isn’t competitive with OpenAI because their revenue and customer list is a fraction of the size. They are squarely behind Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.