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Comment by pcbro141 | Hacker News Reader

Do you think Apple regrets not buying Tesla ~2017-2018 when they had the chance, given indications they are working on an Apple Car? Why or why not?

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I would say no, they don't regret it, because there'd be too much of a personality clash between Musk and the rest of Apple leadership - and if they bought Telsa and then outed Musk, what's the point of buying Tesla?

As someone who never really liked either one (though I did buy a Tesla), Musk is nearly a clone of Jobs in affect and attitude and reality distortion effect.

All those people who are SO UPSET about the spin regarding FSD, for example, are just echoing what all us folks on Linux PCs were saying about Macs through the 90's and early 00's. Remember when the Altivec G4 was a Supercomputer on a Chip despite being slower than a P3 you could buy at Sears? Same deal.

Frankly I think had it happened, Musk would be running Apple today.

Except that Jobs and Apple are all about secrecy, and while they may hype up things they don’t announce things until they exist. Elon’s Twitter account is practically the inverse of Apple.

The secrecy thing was very much a part of the iPhone era. Jobs oversold the Apple III for months before its underwhelming release decades earlier, and the culture he left behind spent years promising a 68040 machine that Motorola couldn't deliver.

It's true that "surprise release" was a Jobs thing where it isn't a Musk thing. I just don't know how definitional that really is -- at the end of the day they're selling very different products with different sales processes. My point was just that they both could lie with a straight face and make 60% of the audience believe them on a reliable basis.

> Musk is nearly a clone of Jobs in affect and attitude and reality distortion effect.

Eh, Musk has more negative tendencies than Jobs, especially related to his public behavior and honesty. Whatever you might think of Jobs, whenever he issued a firm statement it came true. iPhones were always released on schedule.

Musk is years late and many miles short on almost every product he announces. Full Self Driving was supposed to be a thing two years ago. The Tesla Model 3 was supposed to be $35,000 and was also released years late. Tesla Semi? Nonexistent. The Tesla SolarRoof that was the reason for the acquisition of SolarCity never got out of Beta.

Jobs also never had the same "$420 funding secured"/"bet you a signed dollar he's a pedophile" behavior Musk has had either. Steve Jobs was definitely a immanently flawed person, but he didn't exhibit the same degree of complete disregard of the consequences of his actions as Musk does, at least not at comparable ages.

Not trying to defend Musk, but his goals are orders of magnitudes harder than what Jobs had to face.

Musk is on a mission to Mars and is scared of anything that might delay his ultimate goal.

Maybe, but we shouldn't defend people's behavior based on their goals. Musk has a massive habit of either stretching the truth, deceiving, outright lying -- whatever you want to call it -- that Jobs didn't. It's a very important distinction.

If a kid growing up in technology asked me which one should they try to emulate more, I would say Steve Jobs without a doubt. There are far less moral failings you have to defend within his biography.

And two, we should definitely be incredibly skeptical of someone willing to achieve certain goals at all costs. Like ... is going to Mars even a good goal? It's certainly far from obvious that it is. Someone willing to lie, cheat and steal in order to achieve that is not someone I want in my society.

I think Musk will always be a controversial figure.

"Musk has a massive habit of either stretching the truth, deceiving, outright lying -- whatever you want to call it -- that Jobs didn't."

How do we know it's not his honest belief? That said, I don't think anyone takes (or should take) Musk's promises keeping a straight face when it comes to delivery timelines.

I doubt there's anyone who genuinely thinks he is not a major forward pushing force in cleantech and space industry.

I believe, in the long run, especially cleantech is likely to be a very important component battling climate change and local pollution. This could very well be about humanity's survival. I'm not saying Musk is somehow single-handedly responsible for this or even that his concrete contribution has been much yet, but what I am saying is that he's showing the industry a way for all this not only to be doable but to also be profitable. And that's the only way I see cleantech going forward — profit.

In even longer run we really need to get into space and learn how to live there. Both for not having all of the eggs in the same basket, but also to develop true steady state recycling.

Now whether or not Musk delivers on these remains to be seen. At least so far he has been one of the greatest hopes. Not the only one, mind you, but he really has pushed space industry and EV industry forward.

That said, I fully agree immoral behavior should not be tolerated.

How do we define how much achievement discount we should apply based on other behavior? Should the negative always totally eclipse the positive?

That fact that people still write this shit with a straight face makes me want to become a hermit and leave this world behind...

Can you elaborate? I'm pretty convinced that's Musk's true motivation. He put his personal fortunes at stake based on this conviction, nearly losing it all.

Seems crazy for someone to do that unless it's truly their greatest passion.

His COVID tweets almost certainly lead to people taking unnecessary risks and dying alone and intubated. Fuck Elon.

I wouldn't put much blame on him specifically, but yeah, he was enormously irresponsible with a lot of his communication during the pandemic.

Hated those tweets. He did seem to realize his mistake, but not to be man enough to actually admit it.

I’d you’re going to turn this into a competition you need to mention the child that Jobs abandoned?

Elon Musk is not a stellar husband or father. The stuff described here is as bad as anything Jobs ever did: https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start...

Why would they? They make so much money it's not even funny. Tesla is also a very different beast then iPhones, who knows if it would have been as successful.

For the car and battery engineering experience and factories I guess. But I guess Apple can outsource to a car assembler like Magna or Foxconn instead.

It was always a "what the hell does Apple do with all of it's capital" question. They figured that out though -- just buy back stock. Anyone accusing them of being uncreative there has to argue that the hundreds of billions that they returned to investor hands would be better allocated with some forced merger like buying Tesla. It's not a failure to return money to shareholders. It's a recognition of the limitation of your ability to allocate capital.

No, Elon would have never worked inside of Apple's culture IMO.

Do corporations experience emotions?

Yes

This will keep the philosophers busy for a few 1000 years.

If they don't regret it they are absolute morons. The value gained alone is incredible. Literally nobody with half a brain would say no to this deal now.

Apple has been working on the Apple car for year and years. Whenever that happens, having the Tesla tech and manufacturing there would clearly be asset.

Not to mention that I would be a huge amount of money on Tesla self driving Tech being far better then what Apple is fiddling around with.

Nope. I think Apple knows this is overpriced and buying a company is very different from buying a stock. Intrinsic value is fraction of the market price and prevailing price Apple likely had to pay. My guess is Elon also asked for a board seat plus executive management role. Me thinks Tim was smart to pass despite how it appears right now.

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