Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 97 posts

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#21

Post by jollyllama »

eloff wrote: post #17
whoknew1122 wrote: post #11

You buy or found them and make yourself CEO. The real question is whether someone can be CEO of 5 companies and do a good job. Personally, I think Musk is much better at being a brand than a CEO. But you can hide a lot behind smoke and mirrors if you're the richest person in the world and other rich people will throw money at you just to be your friend.

Except he was also doing a phenomenal job early in his career too. It's not all smoke and mirrors or connections.

Isn't the kind of the point? Wouldn't he have had less CEO positions at that time?

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#22

Post by wittycardio »

eloff wrote: post #17
whoknew1122 wrote: post #11

You buy or found them and make yourself CEO. The real question is whether someone can be CEO of 5 companies and do a good job. Personally, I think Musk is much better at being a brand than a CEO. But you can hide a lot behind smoke and mirrors if you're the richest person in the world and other rich people will throw money at you just to be your friend.

Except he was also doing a phenomenal job early in his career too. It's not all smoke and mirrors or connections.

But certainly you accept that now it's just about the brand ?

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#23

Post by joenot443 »

bobkazamakis wrote: post #18
eloff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except he was also doing a phenomenal job early in his career too. It's not all smoke and mirrors or connections.

ah yes, he famously had no connections before his career, and his parents were poor immigrants with only a few emerald mines.

Are you suggesting most wealthy immigrants end up founding a litany of companies?

This is a bit like attributing Wayne Gretzky's success to the fact Walter was a seasoned coach and a huge hockey fan. Obviously it helps having parents to enable your talents, but it's ignorant to pretend that rich parents alone will allow you to rise to the top.

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#24

Post by theGeatZhopa »

One would need compressed reports and supportive suggestions to some of the reported issues. Also, Musk isn't a one man show. He has the people.

Also, he is a very exceptional talent. He wants to know everything about the stuff his companies do in detail. By this, mostly in beginning, he lays a good base of knowledge and thus enables himself to understand the problems more faster.

The other thing is, he's working around the clock. He likes to and just do. That makes him different from us, who thinks money falls from above even when we're off to work free weekend :)

Just like my dad. Worked for 40 years 17/7. Sometimes 3 days in a row without sleeping. "You have to deliver when it's needed." (programming)

I like Musk because of this. And, I think, I would do it better ;)

@elon: I have a proposal how to extend the range of your cars

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#25

Post by msbarnett »

eloff wrote: post #17
whoknew1122 wrote: post #11

You buy or found them and make yourself CEO. The real question is whether someone can be CEO of 5 companies and do a good job. Personally, I think Musk is much better at being a brand than a CEO. But you can hide a lot behind smoke and mirrors if you're the richest person in the world and other rich people will throw money at you just to be your friend.

Except he was also doing a phenomenal job early in his career too. It's not all smoke and mirrors or connections.

Like when they had to force him out of PayPal before he destroyed the company with his “rewrite the entire backend for Windows Server” mandate?

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#26

Post by lastofthemojito »

Is Wikipedia's Neuralink article out-of-date? It lists Jared Birchall as CEO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralink

Your point stands of course - Musk's attention must be growing increasingly divided with all of these ventures, you'd think he'd run out of cycles even to delegate work.

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#27

Post by filoleg »

wittycardio wrote: post #22
eloff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except he was also doing a phenomenal job early in his career too. It's not all smoke and mirrors or connections.

But certainly you accept that now it's just about the brand ?

All the FSD-overpromising tomfoolery aside (as well as a few other things that remain to be seen, like the Boring Company tunnels and Neuralink), I would say that making the first viable (and desirable; but I am ready to eat downvotes from people who will, rightfully, point out that it isn't desirable by them due to the interior not being as luxurious as similarly-priced mercedes/audi/bmw) mass-produced EV and the very recent Falcon-9 Heavy launch are kind of impossible to carry out just by the power of the brand. Especially since neither SpaceX nor Tesla had any brand power prior to actually consistently delivering the results.

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#28

Post by aantix »

msbarnett wrote: post #25
eloff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except he was also doing a phenomenal job early in his career too. It's not all smoke and mirrors or connections.

Like when they had to force him out of PayPal before he destroyed the company with his “rewrite the entire backend for Windows Server” mandate?

People evolve.

Re: Ask HN: How is it possible to be the CEO of 5 companies at the same time?

#30

Post by rchaud »

Musk is a figurehead at both Tesla and SpaceX. He is too far out of the salt mines (or too impatient) to reconcile his wildly optimistic release estimates with actual engineeering reality.

Where is the Hyperloop? Where is the Cybertruck? Where's full self driving? Every single one of these is years behind the CEO's own formally stated launch dates. So who's really in charge?

It's not at all surprising that he'd install himself as interim CEO at Twitter, as it's easier to make it look like he's getting things done. Especially as he gets to play to his base of fans about 'free speech'. No word on how this is impacted by Prince Alwaleeed Bin Talal's share of the takeover, or that of the emirate of Qatar.

Post reply on HN