What does Elon musk do *really*? He has people to manage his companies so he has to manage those. He has vision, first principles thinking and risk appetite. He’s chief meme officer. What else? Seems like the latter is his comparative advantage
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His talent is zeroing in on right strategic technical questions very quickly in a wide range of fields, and being bold enough to pick the most daring options. Lots of veteran technical people can’t do either of those things. Fits Amazon principle of “good leaders are right a lot”
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His range is impressive. Intuitions are dead-on in about 80% of the technical fields he touches. The other 20% he gets wrong. And he gets there in months to years and does better than people who’ve logged decades refining tactical prowess but developing zero strategic intuition.
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This causes reactions ranging from resentment to confusion to disbelief. Doesn’t help that his PR shenanigans, Barnum showmanship, and shitposting make non-engineers doubt his technical abilities. Some people even think he’s pure marketer/showman. Laughably untrue.
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The failure of Elon doubters is a failure of imagination and/or failure of tech literacy. Even if he fails at everything he has left on his to-do list, he will have taken swings at the exact right problems in 80% of things he’s trying. Very solid orientation in tech OODA loop.
Most engineers are lucky if their orientations on problem strategy are solid 15-20% of the time. I’m not talking technical skill. That’s “doing the thing right.”
I’m talking “doing the [technically] right thing.”
No comment on socially/morally.
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This is especially galling to technical geniuses who tend to get attached to the cleverest problems that show off their abilities, and get that confused with “important.”
He’s not a genius in that sense. So doesn’t fall into that trap.
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> Very solid orientation in tech OODA loop.
Interesting that it generalizes across (tech) fields. Any idea why he has it and (most? all?) others not?
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Engineering got taken over by bureaucratic types in the 80s. “First principles” shouldn’t be a radical heuristic, jus a routine one. Iteration habit from software too like James said. Plus the sense that there *is* an art of strategy to technology which many engineers don’t get.
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Yep.
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Bilious with rage at Elon's unlettered STEM redditry, as he uses his understanding of economics, physics and engineering to establish a human presence on Mars.
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I was a doubter on SpaceX initially. Suspected that “needing too many engines” was an anti-pattern, like in the Soviet N1 case. But EM brought an optimiser’s approach, maybe from software: get something working at all, then make it better.
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