Hacker News Reader

Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

It's hard to imagine worse mismanagement than this. The amount of arrogance signals that no one should ever trust Musk's word again.

There are those who I respect who said that Musk built great companies, at least in the past. But now I wonder, how much is Musk and how much is it that Musk just raised a ton of money and the companies were run by people way smarter and more competent than him? And now, in his latest fits of, well, whatever this is, he can't even bother to grift off their better judgement?

Such a shame. So much wasted empire for no good reason.

View on HN

> But now I wonder, how much is Musk and how much is it that Musk just raised a ton of money and the companies were run by people way smarter and more competent than him?

It is quite obvious that the more involved he gets in his companies, the more they fail, Twitter being the most obvious example, but SpaceX and Tesla both do as well as they do despite him, not because of him. He was able to moderate his ego better for those companies due to being less unhinged from reality earlier in his life, when he was putting more of his time into those companies.

He didn't moderate his ego. The people at these companies built a system of advisors to manage their CEO the way that a kingdom with a 5-year-old king used to. He stormed into Twitter without letting them build that up, and now we're seeing the effects.

My take on the man is that his value was both as a salesman (with the overpromising and hype building), as well as the dictator who could cut through analysis paralysis by committee (a la Steve Jobs).

I think it served him well for Tesla and SpaceX but without shielding from his own worst impulses (as in Twitter and Cybertruck at Tesla), his reputation has been squandered.

Add that his social media interaction which has diminished him in the eyes of all but his acolytes....

Steve knew the value of communication and respect, and when to give it and when not to, and how that strategically applied to Apple as a company. Elon knows none of these things - ego is his north star.

Thank you. It is hard not to be labeled as an Apple fan boy when I posit Musk and Jobs do not belong in the same category. Jobs made the point repeatedly about encouraging differences in opinins. Musk behaves as he's only surrounded by sycophants. He's high on his own hype.

My only comparison was that where most companies have layers of management and committees that deliver accordingly, both were able to cut through with their decrees.

It served Musk well earlier but Twitter has shown that he was lucky. It will be interesting to see how the Cybertruck fiasco impacts his ability to lead Tesla.

Agreed. The only thing that Musk shares with Jobs is that he could make a decree and it would happen, as well as a sense of showmanship.

It's easy to shit on Musk (and I'm happy to do it), but I think it's important to recognize past contributions for what they are. I have zero respect for him otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com