Dr. Elon and Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla's Production Hell

If there is no power or risk on the part of the employer then why do some countries have a law requiring that you give the employer a notice period? It's to reduce their risk.

In my country can sued for their damages if you leave without a notice period - real damages such as having to hire more expensive temporary staff to do your job until they can find someone else permanent. That's their risk.

I did not say that. You've either mis-read what I said or you're wilfully misunderstanding.

I said that the law is symmetrical. I didn't say the relationship was. I also didn't say that the risk was.

I remember years ago reading article after article and forum post after forum post about how once we finally deplete oil transportation will revert to the 19th century. I don't read that anymore.

I have little doubt that without Tesla you wouldn't see a dozen other EVs on the market. You might have one or two crappy "compliance cars," but nobody else would be striving to make EVs anyone actually wants to buy.

I am not arguing with you. I don't disagree with much of anything that you wrote.

One of the things that keeps me up at night and frankly depresses me is the question: can you lead or otherwise achieve great things without being an asshole?

Steve Jobs? Asshole. Winston Churchill? Asshole. Stanley Kubrick? Asshole. Bill Gates? Quieter, but judging from MS's behavior in the 80s and 90s, asshole. I could go on.

I'm a founder and have been trying for quite a while to build something great without being an asshole or a total workaholic. It's hard, and I sometimes worry that I'm failing.

Anyone got any good inspiring counterexamples?

I have a speculation about why this might be. The human brain is wired for the much slower, simpler life of a hunter-gatherer. In a modern context most people exist in a state of low-grade depression. We're not really all that driven and our appetite for opportunity and action is calibrated for a world where opportunities for those things are much more rare.

There are ways of tweaking oneself chemically (pun intended): caffeine, amphetamine, cocaine, modafinil. Unfortunately all these have side effects. They accelerate thought but they also muddle or impair it.

But...

Occasionally you get people who are naturally wired with an extreme degree of drive and charisma. It's not that these people are necessarily smarter than everyone else, though some are certainly smart. It's that they operate naturally at a pace that fits the modern world.

Here's where the magic comes in.

Humans are deeply mimetic. We pick up and unconsciously mirror the states of those around us. It's part of why concentrated centers of excellence such as those found in urban settings are often so mysteriously alluring and powerful. When we are around people who are driven to excellence, it increases our drive to excellence.

So you get this positive emotional-mimetic field around these people. Everyone else around them gets tweaked up too.

Unfortunately these traits seem coincident with narcissism, antisocial personality disorders, even full on psychopathy in some cases. So you have these inspiring, driven, animating assholes that seem superhumanly powerful simply because they are not (in modern terms) naturally depressed and anhedonic.

Like I said it's depressing. This is one of those thoughts where if I were proven to be wrong I'd celebrate.