What evidence can you provide that Elon is highly intelligent and skilled?
Really appears to have quite mediocre ability to me. Has focused on some quite interesting problems, but mostly his ability seems like PR/marketing.
Really appears to have quite mediocre ability to me. Has focused on some quite interesting problems, but mostly his ability seems like PR/marketing.
Like, those results don't qualify to you as someone who is intelligent and skilled?
I guess this isn’t the place to suggest it, but really in success like PayPal there is a large element of luck at play. He maybe reasonably smart, but the way some people treat him like the most amazing person who has ever lived is ridiculous.
but that's not what you said. You said he is mediocre. What made you say he is mediocre?
I don’t see this (or any of his other ideas) as coming from someone with an abnormal level of intelligence.
He may have the ability to hire people who can execute well on ideas (though I also think that Tesla’s achievement are over-hyped). He may have good business sense, and the ability to raise money. But I don’t see him as having an amazing intellect... so I’d be interested in evidence that shows that...
So you look at Elon's entire history of ideas, and the one thing that caught your eye first was Hyperloop?
Why did you name the Hyperloop? Is Elon working on a Hyperloop company?
Those things you mentioned "hire people who execute well on ideas", "good business sense", "ability to raise money". Those are medicore skills?
We don't know each other in person, but from online-chatting with you, you sound like you have good intelligence. Can you do any of those?
I think you underestimate the degree to which luck plays a role in the development of companies.
High vacuums are expencive to maintain and take longer to achieve after a leak, but would allow for faster speeds. They also force maglev or something like it to achieve those speeds which is expensive. It also forces you to carry an indecent air supply, and cooling becomes a significant issue.
At STP you just have a normal train which is limited to a few hundred miles an hour.
Between those extremes you need to deal with some air but you can compress it for passengers. Further, you can quickly pump down the air pressure using fewer pumps. You can fly / use ground effect avoiding the mag lev issues.
Heat is really the largest issue, compressing air heats it as does friction, and your passengers / equipment also generate heat. So, you would want the air kept at very low temperates.
Why not just use nag lev? You get faster speeds and as strange as it sounds lower cost per mile of track.
TLDR; Lots of useful trade offs.
You sound like a 100% rational person who looks at only hard evidence, instead of making rash assumptions based on emotions.
What evidence can you provide that Elon is mediocre?
I find it worrying that “Elon is a hyper-intelligent Superman” seems so closely tied up with individual identity in some cases... I guess creating hero’s sometimes makes the universe easier to deal with. But it has an overall negative effect on SV culture.
Even if you ignore all his other achievements, the man sent his car to Mars. And people are still sitting there going "meh, not impressed. Hyperloop. Average intelligence. Medicore".
THAT attitude has an overall negative effect on SV culture.
2. I never said he alone takes all the credit. I would never say that. All I am saying is, maybe Elon is not mediocre?
Maybe give the guy a break? The guy worked his ass off and ended up flying his car to Mars. Is asking you to admit "Elon is not medicore" too much to ask? At what point do we say "hey, may be we have been too hard on Elon. Maybe all this negativity about his intelligence being mediocre is a little too much?"
I just not really agree that he’s super-intelligent or a genius. Most of it seems like PR and marketing..
You said several times Elon has "mediocre intelligence". I asked you questions about it, and you repeatedly clarified and doubled down on that statement multiple times. I don't see where the misrepresentation is. It seemed we are both pretty clear on each other's position, no?
Now you are saying others are "misrepresenting the statement"? Come on. What part did I misrepresent?
All those factors of company success you mentioned, like hiring, getting external funding, are all things Elon was responsible for. You literally just listed those exact things as things Elon is good at.
Maybe give Elon a break? Is that too much to ask?
If you take the time to google that quote, you’ll find it’s been used in opposition campaigns. I guess to suggest Obama is anti-business.
His phrasing, allowed his comment to be misrepresented, which is unfortunate.
- The Boring Company - betting on self-driving tech - getting kicked out of Paypal - sleeping on his factory floor - trying to run 3-4 companies at once - SolarCity - claiming he wants to overengineer the tolerances on his cars - an iPad instead of a dashboard
Basically, I just see a lot of his decisions are not well thought out. His main skill seems to be getting people to give him money.