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Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

(www.ycombinator.com)
1106 points sama | 2 comments | 15 Sep 16 18:05 UTC | HN request time: 2.2s | source
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kstenerud ◴[15 Sep 16 19:30 UTC] No.12509079[source]▶
It always saddens me when I see a slew of Debbie Downer comments from the HN crowd.

"Yes, he ushered in the electric car revolution, but the production carbon footprint is still huge!"

"Yes, he's building rockets, but he took a bunch of government money!"

"Yes, he's paving the way to Mars, but what has he done for world hunger?"

And it not just with Musk, but really with anyone who has been successful. I would have thought that the technologists were above such petty envy. We're here to improve humanity's lot, aren't we?

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rdiddly ◴[15 Sep 16 20:36 UTC] No.12509609[source]▶
There are rational, non-envy-based reasons to object to all the hero-worship. For example, all the things "he" did above were actually done by big teams of people working together, but Elon gets all the credit. He deserves credit, but not all of it.

And let's not forget the millions of people who worked to generate wealth that could be transferred via, and taxed by, PayPal, accruing the fortune with which to start all these projects in the first place. If I didn't "know better" I'd be tempted to conclude that the luck of being in the right place at the right time with a good idea, is the main difference between Elon and the rest, or at least that any intrinsic differences are not as great as you might think. Heck I'm a "visionary" too, just add one billion dollars and tons of free time and see what I come up with! (Campaign coming soon to Kickstarter, LOL)

Man is at once animal and rational, and sometimes the rational side reacts against our own animalistic urge to designate an alpha ape and worship only that one ape. Many of us got into technology as a way of breaking down this same kind of bullshit hierarchy that you can find in so many other places & domains of human life. Technology was supposed to be the great equalizer. In some cases it has worked that way but in others it has only amplified the disequilibrium. It seems we can't escape our inner ape.

Therefore is it "technologists" to whom you should be appealing here for greater reverence? Maybe it's not your technological side, but your ape side, that wants to be more reverent.

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1. Applejinx ◴[15 Sep 16 21:13 UTC] No.12509873[source]▶
But that's the nature of network effects. Jaron Lanier's spoken eloquently about that, and Elon Musk exemplifies it. Whether he likes it or not, he is the figurehead and the focal point. Because he's willing to be that, it builds on itself. Because he's in a valuation-driven growth-only economy on which his businesses depend, it's in his interest to serve as this focal point, and because 'visionary' is an appealing story, the feedback loop gets set up and whirls into motion.

I think he is so much of a nerd that it doesn't change him all that much. I like him better for that, but it's true he doesn't deserve the amount of credit he's given, simply because that's unrealistic.

But, if he CEASES to be 'that guy' and 'the visionary sole leader and innovator', it's less of an appealing story, and his businesses would suffer. He is surfing on a wave of attention which sustains the valuations of his companies, and using the valuation to invest in gigantic projects that may do a lot of good. Surf on, say I.

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2. ◴[15 Sep 16 23:27 UTC] No.12510714[source]▶