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

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

#41

Post by hedora »

rchaud wrote: post #30

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 insta…

Also, try buying solar panels or batteries from Tesla these days.

There is a reason Enphase's stock is on a tear.

Sure, the technology is great, but Power Wall sales are Tesla's "deals to lose", and their sales team is aggressively losing them.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ENPH

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

#42

Post by jackmott42 »

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.

Even if we believe his dads stories, he owned less than 1 emerald mine.

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

#43

Post by rr808 »

Being a classic CEO its difficult to run just one company, two is too much.

Richard Branson is a good example of someone who "ran" multiple companies but in reality was more of a PR genius who got lots of free advertising for his brand. However Branson was always smiling and positive, didn't annoy people the way Musk has started to do recently.

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

#44

Post by rocgf »

aantix wrote: post #31
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.

John Carmack considers him a true engineer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQro0rkg2DE I think Carmack would call him out (Elon) if he thought less of him. Carmack seems honest to a fault. I don't think "smoke and mirrors" is justified.

OP did not say he is not an engineer or a fake engineer.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

aantix wrote: post #31
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.

John Carmack considers him a true engineer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQro0rkg2DE I think Carmack would call him out (Elon) if he thought less of him. Carmack seems honest to a fault. I don't think "smoke and mirrors" is justified.

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by IgorPartola »

dwater wrote: post #38
aantix wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Carmack considers him a true engineer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQro0rkg2DE I think Carmack would call him out (Elon) if he thought less of him. Carmack seems honest to a fault. I don't think "smoke and mirrors" is justified.

That's not the issue being discussed. His engineering capabilities are irrelevant to him running the day-to-day operations of 5 of the biggest companies in the world at once.

In what universe are these the biggest companies?

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

#47

Post by codegeek »

Based on the amount of tweets he does, I doubt he actually spends time on deep operational stuff at every company. He has got people doing it for him. He does have lot of energy which keeps him going but no one can spend crazy hours on 5 companies at that scale at the same time.

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

#48

Post by insane_dreamer »

vadym909 wrote: post #34

It is strange how the main people running th sr companies are completely unknown and unrecognized. I don’t know if it is coincidental or by design. For most other big tech companies there is usually a lot of guessing by the media of who’s next to lead.

everyone knows who Bezos is; probably 95 out of 100 people would not be able to name the current CEO of Amazon.

another example: everyone knows the Walmart family; I'd guess 99 out of 100 people would not be able to name the Walmart CEO.

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

#49

Post by aantix »

rocgf wrote: post #44
aantix wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Carmack considers him a true engineer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQro0rkg2DE I think Carmack would call him out (Elon) if he thought less of him. Carmack seems honest to a fault. I don't think "smoke and mirrors" is justified.

OP did not say he is not an engineer or a fake engineer.

> But you can hide a lot behind smoke and mirrors

You're a fake engineer if you hide behind smoke and mirrors.

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

#50

Post by yks »

aantix wrote: post #31
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.

John Carmack considers him a true engineer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQro0rkg2DE I think Carmack would call him out (Elon) if he thought less of him. Carmack seems honest to a fault. I don't think "smoke and mirrors" is justified.

Musk’s thing is an ability to say things that are kinda common sense and evident to most low-level techies but which the modern corporate culture prohibits to say aloud, e.g. “lots of managers is actually bad”. Musk says that and everyone is “wow what a maverick”, some L4 eng says that and people comment how it is a loser mindset.

He may be a “true engineer” but I don’t think a particularly genius one at that.

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