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Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

(www.ycombinator.com)
1106 points sama | 3 comments | 15 Sep 16 18:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.643s | source
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LordHumungous ◴[15 Sep 16 18:59 UTC] No.12508800[source]▶
>I think a lot of people think I must spend a lot of time with media or on businessy things. But actually almost all my time, like 80% of it, is spent on engineering and design.

Uh... that's not really a CEO's job though.

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rantanplan ◴[15 Sep 16 19:06 UTC] No.12508874[source]▶
We're just used to CEOs having only a decorative role, who can be replaced in an instant. So much so that when we see a CEO actually working/engaging with the actual product/service, they seem like a peculiar and rare specimen.
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duaneb ◴[15 Sep 16 19:11 UTC] No.12508915[source]▶
I would not characterize many CEOs as being "a decorative role, who can be replaced in an instant". Leading may not be hands-on engineering and design (at least, you hope!), but it's certainly FAR from decorative.
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1. rantanplan ◴[15 Sep 16 19:12 UTC] No.12508927[source]▶
I would characterize most CEOs I've met(and not only) as decorative. And that's why they do get replaced in an instant.
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2. duaneb ◴[15 Sep 16 19:59 UTC] No.12509336[source]▶
Part of the problem is that a CEO plays a very different role in a three person company, a 300 person company, a 3000 person company, and a 30k person company. I have a very difficult time imagining swapping out the CEO of an early round startup without having a major existential crisis.
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3. rantanplan ◴[15 Sep 16 21:02 UTC] No.12509809[source]▶
To that I agree. I wasn't talking so much about startups. Admittedly a CEO(quite often a founder) there plays a much more instrumental role.