Hacker News Reader

He is now retired and says the same thing as before (see "The Elon Musk show" on BBC). If Elon is truly so incompetent why would he work for him for 15 years? I know a fair bit about Musk, at least of what's publicly available, what do you know? Social media "Emerald mine" hot takes?

View on HN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

So if an employee has something good to say about their current boss, it's because they're afraid to lose their jobs (fair). If they're retired and still say good things, it's Stockholm Syndrome (as a Stockholmer I take offense btw ;)). So the only people we can trust are the ex-employees (possibly fired?) who have bad things to say? To me, the retired highly acclaimed engineer who worked closely with him for many years would be the absolute best signal here. Note that in the interview he's not unequivacly positive about Musk, he describes the experience as "stressful" and jokingly "I wouldn't want to have him as a dad", due to his high expectations and demands. But pushing your employees to the limits in order to do great things is not incompetence.

It's hard to tell, and it's certainly possible that this person genuinely enjoyed working with Musk and believes him to be a visionary. But if I spent half of my working years pursuing the erratic whims of an egomaniac, I'd have a very strong incentive in justifying this to myself with the belief that he is indeed an unparalleled genius, and not just a delusional rich man.

At that point, who he is is who I am. His public image and status reflects on mine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com