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Why is there only one Elon Musk?

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Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?

#101

Post by ippisl »

manaskarekar wrote: post #18

James Gosling: Liquid Robotics http://www.liquidr.com/news_events/press/2011/2011-08-30-gos... John D. Carmack: Armadillo Aerospace http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home I'm tempted to throw in Google's Sergey Brin (Larry Page too?) for Google Glass. And I'm sure there are a few others. Elon Musk just shows up more in the news due to his success. Also, not all billionaires are technically inclined geek…

I would add: Khosla, who pushed green tech as a VC and with his private money.

ratan TATA , who pushed the low cost indian car , which is a sort of science fiction in his culture.

Idan ofer , who invested in "better place" the electric car company with the swappable batteries.

And BTW , i'm sure bezos see full e-commerce(including groceries and fashio and furniture) as a science fiction.

Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?

#103

Post by danielweber »

jessriedel wrote: post #45
unreal37 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having not been able to maintain my own marriage, I think its more complicated than that. But the quality Musk has that almost no one in his position has is the willingness to risk it all for the dream. Musk himself almost went broke on SpaceX and Tesla. Most billionaires are into preservation of capital in a big way.

> Most billionaires are into preservation of capital in a big way. This is surprising to me from a behavioral economics stand point. Seems like billionaires would know they've very nearly maxed out their utility function in terms of material stuff. I'd think it would be very worth it to them to risk a billion dollars (which, remember, is something like the cumulative life's work of a thousand human beings ) on mere p…

I read somewhere (can't remember where) that according to people who measure happiness, one of the most unhappy things that can happen to you is to have a lot of money and then lose it. It seems weird to people who haven't gone through it, but there you go.

Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?

#104

Post by zimpenfish »

ErrantX wrote: post #42
gee_totes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Virgin has trains?

In the UK, yes, they operate a couple of rail franchises. Personally I've always found them far and away the best company - but they have the misfortune of running "cross country" routes, which go through every bottleneck in our rail system :D

WCML is an abomination of a service.

Toilets frequently out of order. Carriages with toilets reeking of urine. Reservations downloaded to the train maybe one time in 5. Empty first class carriages while standard contains double the number of people. Attempting to stop people with open walk-on tickets from getting on valid trains. etc. etc.

Maybe it's just my (and everyone I know's) bad luck that these things happen every single time I (we) use them.

Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?

#105

Post by JDGM »

jessriedel wrote: post #81
JDGM wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Could you elaborate on how Katja's idea in the OB post might be used here?" Exactly in the way you describe. I was indeed using it to support the OP and not myself: "I'm not sure which of us is right, quite possibly the author and not me - LINK".

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying. Do you really think there are a bunch of Elon Musk's out there who, say, just aren't doing as much self-promotion?

I don't know. It was one of those comments that started as one thing and by the end I'd basically persuaded myself of quite the opposite. The turning point I think was getting used to the idea of without being on the front page of Hacker News every day?".

Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?

#106

Post by coob »

untog wrote: post #54
Me1000 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we really going to start analyzing a man's marriage now? This is not a tabloid. :/

I agree with your sentiment but I'm actually kind of conflicted. Inspecting into his marriage feels dirty and indeed, tabloid. But if we want to get the full picture of entrepreneurial life, we can't ignore personal life. If you want to be the next Elon Musk it is probably worth noting that his marriage failed- if nothing else, just to remind you that even when you're a billionaire it is very difficult to have it all…

Why stop at his personal life? Would you like to look at his medical records too?

Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?

#107

Post by jessriedel »

rgbrenner wrote: post #88
jessriedel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A space company? There are several of those.. Jeff Bezos (worth 23b) has Blue Orgin I think most people would agree that Bezos is a runner up, but how many is several? I can think of him and Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic). And neither of them seems to have made it their mission in life rather than just a billionaire's hobby.

SpaceX Blue Orgin Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic Armadillo Aerospace Bigelow Aerospace Stratolaunch Systems I think that counts as "several"

Thanks very much for the info. Bigelow Aerospace and Stratolaunch Systems are excellent examples. Bigelow is especially interesting because from what I've googled he doesn't seem to have any sort of technical background.

On the other hand, I don't believe John Carmack is a billionaire, and in any case Armadillo Aerospace has only had a few million invested in it. (Whether or not these guys are billionaires is very important. The question is about rarity, and the pool of people under discussion gets much bigger if we consider people with merely 100 million and who are consequently restricted to more modest goals.)

In any case, I think the point may still stand that these people devote much less of their emotional and temporal capital than Musk. I'd love to hear alternative evidence.

EDIT (in reply to jlgreco since I can't do it in the normal way): Yep, according to the side bar on Wikipedia his net worth is 2.3 billion as of March.

Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?

#108

Post by largesse »

edw519 wrote: post #30

This post reminds me of that old joke: Husband: I am the head of the household! I determine our family's position on all of the major economic, political, and social issues of the day! Wife: I decide the little things, like where we'll live, what we'll eat, and where the kids go to school. As much as I admire the dreams and accomplishments of Elon Musk, I have trouble getting past the idea that he failed to maintain…

> As much as I admire the dreams and accomplishments of Elon Musk, I have trouble getting past the idea that he failed to maintain his marriage

It takes two to tango. Maintaining a marriage is under no one person's control.

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