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.
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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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This stuff is btw immediately obvious to competent tech managers who were good but not great as individual contributor engineers (I’m one). But career ICs and non-tech managers have trouble seeing what he brings to any tech party.

