I'm really surprised that (AFAIK, haven't checked lately) no billionaire is funding Polywell, focus, and/or other fringe fusion research projects. I know, the odds of these panning out are not great, but if you want to become a trillionaire, seems like these are the kind of lottery tickets that could get you there -- and do a massive amount of good for the world in the process. I can tell you, if I had a few hundred million to throw around, I would be all over these things.
Why is there only one Elon Musk?
171–180 of 180 posts
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#172A poorly-known characteristic of bell curves is that despite the bulk of the curve being fairly "normal", the extremes can be very extreme, and at the top end the spacing between #1 and #2 can be surprisingly large. Outliers can really be outliers. But you'll never have very many of them.
Sure, but the OP's point is that there are over a thousand billionaires in the world. It's not the fact that outliers exist, it's that fact that among people with a billion dollars, most don't seem to care about this type of greatness. That is: it's easy to imagine a world where half of the billionaires are doing outlandish things, and the outliers are (say) the guys who are putting men on Mars at a reasonable price.…
Considering most billionaires either inherit a significant nest-egg or got there from bushiness / networking or the financial sector I suspect they mostly lack the hard science background to know what's worth perusing.
Note: Inherited wealth tends to be further from the top, while 4 of the top 20 inherited it from Walmart the percentage increases when you look in the 1-5 billion range.
You also find people like Alfredo Harp Helú (born 1944) is a Mexican businessman of Lebanese origin, and as of 2011, with a net worth of $1.0 billion, is according to Forbes the 1140th richest person in the world. He is also the cousin of Carlos Slim Helú, who as of 2011 is the richest person in the world as ranked by Forbes.
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't dispute that Musk will go down in history as an entrepreneur and not a father. That's not the point. The point is that when you show Musk as an inspiration for entrepreneurship, you should look at his whole life- because being a serial entrepreneur absolutely has an effect on your personal life. The title of the story is "Why is there only one Elon Musk"- there are many, connected answers. His personal lif…
> The point is that when you show Musk as an inspiration for entrepreneurship, you should look at his whole life- because being a serial entrepreneur absolutely has an effect on your personal life. Think about what you're saying. I hope by now you are aware that women rightly object to this kind of mixing of the personal and professional, and that to refer to a woman's personal and relationship choices in connection…
Do avoid saying this about a woman, about, say, Marissa Mayer, present CEO at Yahoo. Her personal and professional lives are rightly evaluated separately.
They aren't, though. When she announced the "no remote working rule" she was criticised for having babycare facilities next to her office, allowing her to care for her child at work. And it was a valid criticism- she was subjecting her employees to conditions that she insulated herself from.
If you are evaluating a person as a whole (which the article is), you can't ignore their personal life without also losing a lot of important context.
Think about what you're saying. I hope by now you are aware that women rightly object to this kind of mixing of the personal and professional
I think they object to being unfairly singled out on that basis, not that people shouldn't ever take someone's personal life into account in general.
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're their kids, I'm pretty sure the marriage comes out on top.
I don't know, as a child of divorce, I think having a dad who pioneered flight to Mars would be better then my parents staying in an unhappy relationship.
But is it better than your dad not going to Mars and instead being able to work on your parents marriage?
-Also a child of divorce
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the responses you are getting are as if you are the anti-Musk but you are right. People can choose family life, they can choose professional or a balance. I see one as an individual perspective and one as a society perspective. Musk will be remembered for his incredible achievements, he will not be remembered for being father of the year (any time soon at least according to your post).
Name one person that was named "father of the year"? I certainly can't bring any to mind (without googling or some such--assuming such an award is even given out by some tabloid outlet). Precisely why would Elon Musk care to be named something that has, for all practical intents and purposes, no value?
It is a saying, I mean he will not be remembered as a present and attention giving father.
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#176I admire him since he admits failures. Also from an intelectual standpoint (e.g. first principles reasoning), he dares to push the limits.
There are not a lot of t-shirts available of Elon so I made one myself: https://www.teepublic.com/show/2278-elon-musk
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, as a child of divorce, I think having a dad who pioneered flight to Mars would be better then my parents staying in an unhappy relationship.
But is it better than your dad not going to Mars and instead being able to work on your parents marriage? -Also a child of divorce
I guess there is no way to tell, since I'm not sure how dramatically that would have affected me. But since my life turned out pretty great despite of the divorce, I think Dad going to Mars would only make it that much sweeter.
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A disproportionate share of billionaires are engineers. Thanks, do you have a cite for this? My intuition is still that a much higher fraction of billionaires are business/management types than the general population of people at their intelligence level.
> "My intuition is still that a much higher fraction of billionaires are business/management types" It's both. Nobody becomes a billionaire doing engineering all day, but a great many become billionaires by doing business with an engineering background. If you look at the major industrialists of our era (and before), many of them come from technical backgrounds, and have done their time in the trenches. When Ford hir…
Same with Intel, when they hired their first CEO who didn't rise through the ranks as a process engineer.
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
can't say this for most of the +50 I know.
can't say that for most of the -50 I know either. The undiscussed metastory aside from the opinions about good or bad, is probably that neophilia, or STEM fixation, or citizen science, or whatever you want to call it, apparently does not correlate with wealth. Not an amazing cultural observation, I'm sure any starving PHD student would tend to agree, the world's full of ramen eating phd students and $25K/yr nontenure…
Maybe the STEM-fixation isn't because those "newer" academic branches are just "in" but because they get stuff done the "older" ones didn't in hundrets of years.
I don't wanna know how much brain power is burned for no good in other academic fields...
(Yes there is also burnd much of in the STEM fields, but somehow they still get stuff done)
Re: Why is there only one Elon Musk?
#180Earlier 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 would suggest if you look at a sampling of billionaires (like Sam Walton's children who own Walmart), or any other high profile billionaire on Forbes list, they are actually pretty content earning 1-2% a year on that money.
Even young Mark Zuckerberg would not take the money he made on Facebook and turn around and start a company where he could lose 66% of his fortune if it didn't work out.
Most serial entrepreneurs work on borrowed money after the first exit, or only invest a small part of their wealth on the next one.
Even Warren Buffet, who is renowned as an investor and sometimes a wild speculator (like trying to corner the silver market), won't risk more than a small percentage of his wealth/Berkshire on a risky investment.
Elon Musk made $160MM on Paypal, invested $100MM of his own money in SpaceX which was an all or nothing bet. And the rest $60MM in Tesla (and a divorce), and in 2010 had to borrow money from friends to live on. That's guts! And believing in yourself!