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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?

#61

Post by filoleg »

icapybara wrote: post #13
Finnucane wrote: post #2

Given how things are going at Twitter so far, one might rule out the second option. And there's probably investors who are asking themselves this question too.

It's too early to tell with Twitter.

Agreed. But keep in mind that "too early to tell" is the perfect time period for people to project their personal biases onto the potential future outcomes. After all, there is no way to strongly disprove it.

I keep getting flashbacks to the frontpage of HN in the months after Zuck's acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp. It was overwhelmingly flooded with posts and replies, all in consensus, and all in a very similar vein to what I see now with Elon's acquisition of Twitter. A few years later, both of those acquisitions (insta+whatsapp) were near-universally accepted as successful and forward-looking for the time.

Mind you, I am not using this example as an evidence of the Twitter acquisition turning out well. It totally can turn out terrible. We will have to wait and see. The point I am trying to make is that all these current speculations on the future of Twitter are more similar to astrology rather than anything substantial.

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

#62

Post by theGeatZhopa »

theGeatZhopa wrote: post #24

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 aro…

The best about you guys is that you click on down vote without discussion or even trying to understand what others have stated. I wish you Angsthasen good luck on your further life hahhah

And @musk pls don't care about the slowdowners and the guys from yesterday, I still can help you with the range.

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

#64

Post by rchaud »

jackmott42 wrote: post #55
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…

There has been this kind of rhetoric around Elon things a lot. "Wheres the reusuable booster?" "Where is the model 3?" "Haha the model 3 is in a tent". Meanwhile the model 3 and Y dominate world EV sales, and the reusable boosters have become a boring part of weekly life. I'm not sure I would interpret Elons aspirational predictions as lack of involvement. It isn't unusual to publicly push for the impossible in the h…

Coaches and managers probably do not have the Mythical Man-Month on their bookshelf. Musk and his advisors almost definitely do.

In any case, coaches that make these kinds of announcements several times and fail to achieve them, do not stay in the job very long. In Musk's case, this is immaterial as he has rigged the Tesla board with loyalists and family members.

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

#65

Post by shadowfoxx »

If you own 5 companies then you're CEO of 5 companies at the same time.

Companies are just fiefdoms and 'CEO' or any other title the lord gives themselves is just that. Like Kings ruled over country, or countries, the quantity does not matter at scale. Yeah as such 1 king, sorry, 1 CEO couldn't rule over 1000 companies that were each 1 person working - that would be 1000 people reporting and asking questions of 1 person. But at scale, the people at Tesla, etc, don't report to Musk.

If anything, at the scale these companies are at a CEO is worth their connections and as one of the handful of men considered "Richest people in the world" he has access to anyone at anytime, it seems. He has access to any and all resources. So if there is a problem at any one of these companies that cannot be solved by the entire company beneath him, then Musk most likely has the access to solve it - but these issues are few and far between, realistically.

At worst, he fills his time by inserting himself into problems that he's not capable of solving (looking at you hyperloop) and at best, he spends his days chillin responding to emails, attending fancy lunches and dinners, and attending boring meetings.

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

#66

Post by aantix »

falcolas wrote: post #54
aantix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you can hide a lot behind smoke and mirrors You're a fake engineer if you hide behind smoke and mirrors.

This thread is about his ability to be a CEO. Which can also utilize smoke and mirrors.

He's billed as an engineer that runs engineering companies.

That's his persona.

And it appears to be true.

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

#67

Post by warkanlock »

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.

good book regarding this topic, it's an essay explaining exactly this: "Good to Great". Quite old but most of the concepts there are still valid nowdays

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

#68

Post by Bubble_Pop_22 »

Me thinks Musk is stacking up companies the same way the stripper in "The big short" was stacking houses.

In both cases there is tons of leverage involved. The stripper levered up using home equity to buy new apartments, whereas Musk is using political climate.

The functional companies are relying on political climate as leverage.

Tesla= Political will to do something about climate change

SpaceX= Political will to do something in space for dick measuring contest purposes

The Boring Company= hype fueled scam

Neuralink = hype fueled scam

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

#69

Post by filoleg »

jackmott42 wrote: post #42
bobkazamakis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And iirc, the overall dollar value of that "less than 1 emerald mine" was barely in mid-high 5 figures. Of course, not adjusted for dollar value at the time, but that adjustment wouldn't balloon it up to 10 times that in 2022 dollars.

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

#70

Post by yamtaddle »

mkl95 wrote: post #20

Each of those companies probably has an actual CEO that goes by "VP of operations" or some similar title. And Musk mostly approves some of their decisions and gives his take.

See also smaller-time founder-CEO sorts with multiple businesses going at once, a couple board seats, another on a nonprofit, an advisory role at yet another company, and periodic self-congratulatory Linkin posts about how despite being so busy and successful they manage to find time for family.

Well wouldn't you know, one of the employees at one of their 25-person companies is an executive assistant! Guess which one actually shows up more than 15 hours a week, the CEO or the "assistant"? Repeat for all other roles they "perform" that aren't expected to be very, very part-time anyway. Or if they do show up something resembling full-time they're on the phone most of the day sorting out personal stuff or dealing with their other ventures.

The answer in ~all cases like this is they don't do half as much (at any given job) as people used to working 40 hours for a living might expect them to.

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