Ask HN: Why Do We Act Like Elon Musk Is Super-Man?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9812261

by cconcepts • 11 years ago

26 50 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Granted, he is an insanely gifted and hard-working guy who obviously understands both technical and managerial aspects really well, but some people act like he is achieving all this on his own when he has thousands of people working for him who are among the best minds available.

Is it not (at least partially) a marketing technique that Musk gets a huge portion of credit and attention for the successes at his companies? A central persona for the media to focus on and create a "Musk Effect"?

ForHackernews5• 11 years ago

I think many HN users tend to be Elon Musk fanboys because he (or at least his public persona) represents an idealized vision of what they wish they could be. He's fantastically wealthy, successful and driven, and he's working on "important" projects and Big Ideas. More to the point, he portrays himself as an engineer/visionary. Unlike other "heroic" figures in business (e.g. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson) Musk styles himself a builder, an engineer first and a businessman second, and so HN users who are primarily software engineers who maybe dream of starting a business see themselves in him.

cconcepts2• 11 years ago

Yes, it all just seems so well executed. I find it hard to imagine that level of cool is achieved without a well oiled PR machine working in the background...

(At least thats my cynical initial reaction)

ForHackernews5• 11 years ago

Obviously there is. How many people even know that Musk didn't found Tesla (he was an early investor who later stepped in as CEO)? It's clearly a good PR strategy to identify him closely with their brand, and give the company a persona. Quick, name the CEO of Ford!

Nursie• 11 years ago

Yup.

Basically it comes down to "If I were a really rich guy then I would totally make electric cars and space stuff, that's awesome".

I guess he also managed not to step on any toes or mudyd the waters too much - the B&M Gates foundation does amazing work, but there's the legacy of MS and its dirty tricks there. And Steve Jobs did... what with his fortune? Obviously we don't know what he might have done were he still alive.

That's not to say other billionaires are less deserving of praise, or that Musk actually deserves the hero-worship he gets, just that Musk is a bit of a fantasy for nerds I suppose.

auntienomen• 11 years ago

I don't particularly want to be Elon Musk -- frankly, I prefer the life I've built for myself. But I think the world could use more people like him, trying to effect big positive changes. Social networking technology is lovely stuff, but it doesn't inspire me in the same way as NASA's glory days.

djloche• 11 years ago

Add in favoritism for underdog positioned companies. Tesla vs GM. SpaceX vs ULA.

ratsimihah• 11 years ago

Imagine what the world would be like with Elon Musks everywhere :D

kushti3• 11 years ago

Probably because western boys are growing up reading comics with super heroes. Comics-backed way of thinking isn't compatible with a critical analysis.

japes98• 11 years ago

He takes 'impossible' problems/markets and creates solutions for them.

We need to get him working on global warming.

ForHackernews5• 11 years ago

But...has he? He's CEO of a marginally-profitable electric car company that's propped up by hefty government subsidies, and he's got a rocket company that may or may not eventually make it significantly cheaper to launch things into orbit (and again, gets almost all its funding from government contracts). Oh, and there's the HyperLoop, if that ever happens / is even possible.

I don't want to come off as too much of a hater, because the problems SpaceX and Tesla (note: the companies, not the man) are trying to solve are genuinely extremely difficult[0] but they sure haven't "created solutions" for them yet. From the hype you read, you'd almost think SpaceX had successfully recovered at least one reusable rocket.

Really, Musk's only incontestably successful venture was PayPal.

[0] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/exped...

feld• 11 years ago

Innovation quite often comes through government subsidies

It's almost like an incentive to build technology better and cheaper so it can be mass-produced and everyone benefits

whoa

myth_buster2• 11 years ago

  marginally-profitable electric car company

_Electric_ is the operative word here. If it were an IC car company then perhaps on a stretch, it wouldn't be stellar.

  propped up by hefty government subsidies

They are competing in an industry (oil/car manufacturing) where the incumbents already get a large chunk of subsidies. So the table is already tilted.

  haven't "created solutions" for them yet

I think on the contrary, in case of Tesla, they have made an electric car practical.

rimunroe• 11 years ago

Does he though? And are those solutions actually viable?

happyscrappy• 11 years ago

He is. The biggest thing holding back renewables is storage. Distributed battery storage is one of Musk's projects.

EliRivers• 11 years ago

insanely gifted

In what way? As far as I can tell, he's smart but not particularly brilliant. His business achievements don't seem to be the result of any particular incredible ability in the field. What's the insane gift?

alphadevx2• 11 years ago

In the technology industry, what other heroes do we have to inspire us, if not Musk?

kushti3• 11 years ago

Torvalds, "Nakamoto", Stallman, Snowden ?

alphadevx2• 11 years ago

They are all great thought leaders, but not really on the industry/entrepreneurial side like Musk. None of them are multimillionaires like Musk, and if you look at the other multimillionaires in the industry, few of them are doing anything near as interesting with their wealth as Musk is.

Fede_V• 11 years ago

So, two distinct comments:

- We, as a species, tend to attribute way too much credit to the people in key roles and not enough to the people around them. You see this in sports, in tech, and in politics. I wish there was a name for this cognitive failure, because I see it all the time and it really deserves its own name.

- The second point - as to the merit of Musk. You've already discussed his managerial and technical excellence - but for me, what sets him aside from many other highly talented peers (Zuckerberg, Page, etc) is that he focused on very concrete 'solid' problems. Facebook is a marvel, but to me, rocket science will always remain more impressive than social media. This willingness to take on incredibly difficult problems is something that I really admire - which is also why I love what Gates is trying to do with his foundation.

stefantalpalaru• 11 years ago

I wish there was a name for this cognitive failure, because I see it all the time and it really deserves its own name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality

ForHackernews5• 11 years ago

Also the (largely discredited) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory

cconcepts2• 11 years ago

Yeah I've learned to show respect to Gates too

calibraxis• 11 years ago

An aspect of authoritarianism? (That is, the more someone’s affected by it, the more they’ll notice those on top of a hierarchy, as opposed to subordinates?)

myth_buster2• 11 years ago

I also admire the fact that he is willing to throw everything in to see a project succeed. Case in point is he coming close to bankruptcy (in 2008? )while trying to keep SpaceX running.

Also the fact that he could run three major companies in parallel. The amount of context switching he would have to do would be incredible.

anders30• 11 years ago

You are absolutely correct that he does not accomplish these things on his own. That is a valid point that can be said of many people today.

Having read books like "Good to Great" and "Creative Capital" and given my own personal experience at a large company, I raise Elon Musk to the "Super-Man" level because of his leadership. Consider the technical challenges and setbacks that his companies (Tesla and SpaceX) have faced. It is no easy task to maintain the vision and energy necessary to motivate the thousands of people who work for him in the face of such issues and audacious goals.

I don't really consider him Super-Man by the way and I have never met him. I only know how difficult realizing my own visions in life have been. To be in his position certainly requires more of "something" that I am yet to discover in myself. I therefore consider him worthy of my respect.

devonjones• 11 years ago

He's not superman, duh, he's Tony Stark.

dyeje• 11 years ago

Because he has an excellent PR team.

andrewtbham2• 11 years ago

You dismiss Musk's accomplishments because he has so many of the "best minds" working for him. That is exactly the wrong way to look at it. Go out and try to recruit someone who is brilliant. You will see it's a non-trivial task.

Furthermore the reason I believe him to be the most significant entrepreneur of all time is this... No one that I know of... has taken progressively larger fortunes and bet them on such high risk venture. No one ever has done that... Most people would have retired after zip2. Even a highly driven person would have probably become a venture capitalist after paypal... like Peter Thiel did. Also, no one that I know has come so publicly to the brink of failure and succeeded like Elon did in 2008. The underlying reason is no one has vision like he does. Going to Mars, and accelerating the transition to electric vehicles are huge ideas... The vision of going to Mars alone is in the same league as JFK and going to the moon. And that's just 1/2 of what is working on.

richardbrevig• 11 years ago

You dismiss Musk's accomplishments because he has so many of the "best minds" working for him. That is exactly the wrong way to look at it. Go out and try to recruit someone who is brilliant. You will see it's a non-trivial task.

That's exactly it. We always speak about solo founders and co-founders...because you need to show that you can "convince others of your vision." Musk has done this with some of the best minds. He pulled them together.

adventured• 11 years ago

Howard Hughes effectively did these things, in terms of constantly leveraging his fortune into extreme risk to push numerous businesses forward.

Hughes' companies technical accomplishments were vast. In many ways he was Musk, before Musk. His were among the first companies to work in space, and was prodigious in aviation and aerospace. I would argue Hughes exceeded what Musk has accomplished by a dramatic margin - so far.

Eg:

"The company developed radar systems, electro-optical systems, the first working laser, aircraft computer systems, missile systems, ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), and many other advanced technologies."

"Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division built the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom, in 1963 and followed it closely with the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966. Later that year their Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the Moon as part of the lead-up to the moon landings in Project Apollo."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Aircraft_Company

andrewtbham2• 11 years ago

I don't know a lot about Howard Hughes, but there are some obvious parallels. They were both maverick entrepreneurs in multiple industries, and both in aerospace.

However, Elon Musk started from very humble beginnings, whereas Hughes was born into a fortune. Also, Elon's story is not finished. He has really just scratched the surface. If Tesla continues as a niche car manufacturer and Space X doesn't create re-usable rockets, then Elon will not be even in the top 10 most important entrepreneurs. But if his vision comes to fruition... If in 20 years, all cars are electric and supplied by giga-factories or competitive clones. If super-charger technology is a standard like 120V electrical outlets... If we have re-usable rockets. If space x provides global satellite internet access to earth and Mars. If we have a colony of 1 million people on Mars... Then Elon will be the most epic entrepreneur of all time. The compelling thing is his vision and the trajectory of his success.

snowwrestler• 11 years ago

but some people act like he is achieving all this on his own when he has thousands of people working for him who are among the best minds available.

Yes, he does now, but at one point in the past, he did not. Building a world-beating team is extremely difficult--IMO, way more difficult than most programmer/engineer types here on HN give credit for.

Hiring super smart and dedicated people is hard to do, especially for a risky startup. You have to identify the talent you need, and convince them to leave their current job to take a risk on you (because talented people tend to already be employed in nice jobs). And you have to do it very quickly, repeatedly, without making too many mistakes.

It's difficult to get out of the hindsight mode, and remember that in the early days all of his current companies looked unlikely to succeed. He's "Elon Musk" now, but in those days he was just one of the PayPal millionaires--potentially a one-hit wonder.

Beyond hiring, there is organizing the team. That means hiring leaders outside the engineering comfort zone, like financial, sales, managerial, communications, HR, etc. And organizing them and delegating the right work to them, while maintaining focus on the things that only a CEO could do.

So, the fact that his companies employ thousands of top-notch people is, to me, one of the best reasons to think of him as an unique and amazing leader.

On top of this, he's doing it in multiple industries at once--and in industries that most people thought had very high barriers to new entrants.

jsprogrammer• 11 years ago

Are these companies profitable? Aren't they heavily subsidized with government grants and below market loans to the tune of hundreds of millions? Isn't even a $1 million barrier pretty high?

pseudonym012• 11 years ago

To a lot of the comments going with some variation of "His business aren't that successful and/or he is propped up by government contracts" I would say that it is really easy to look back in hindsight and say Tesla/SpaceX aren't a big deal but I think Tesla did for the electric car what the iPhone did for the smartphone. Also maybe it is just PR but I really see many other private companies launching/developing rockets.

As the public face of these companies that are so awesomely nerdy Elon Musk gets the public credit for their success just like he will take the blame for their possible failures.

ForHackernews5• 11 years ago

Also maybe it is just PR but I really see many other private companies launching/developing rockets.

It's largely PR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_co...

pseudonym012• 11 years ago

Ah, well alright then. Guess he deserves some kudos for being good at PR :P

tdy721• 11 years ago

I don't think it's just good PR. The way SpaceX has gone about building rockets is different. They want to land and reuse the rockets, nobody else was doing that. I think that helped excite a lot of people (myself included). You get a bunch of nerds excited about something and the PR will follow organic style.

zoba• 11 years ago

Imagine the world as it is now, but, with Elon Musk and the effect he has had subtracted from it.

If you did this exercise with most people, there wouldn't really be much difference. However with Elon, it would be impossible to calculate the difference.

PayPal probably would've still happened, but not in the same way. And there likely would've been less of a subsequent impact from the investments and experience gained by the people who worked at PayPal.

Tesla has put pressure on the auto industry to be innovative in a way they hardly felt prior to Tesla. Aside from electric cars, theres the Gigafactory, and the new pressure on dealerships.

Aside from SpaceX, I've only heard of Virgin Galactic in the same area... and Virgin Galactic is not nearly as advanced as SpaceX.

The point is not that none of this would've happened without Elon. The point is that it /did/ happen, and it happened /because/ of Elon. Elon may not have the power of thousands of minds in his own mind, but, he has organized all of those minds in such a way that it creates new opportunities for everyone - not an easy task.

carsongross• 11 years ago

I agree that there is a cult-of-personality around Musk, and I dislike his politely-ignored reliance on government subsidies, but, to modify a tweet by @ReactionaryCEO:

1965 Engineer: I'm working on a rocket to put a man on the moon.

2015 Engineer: I trick people into clicking on ads.

2015 Elon Musk: I'm working on a rocket to put a man on the moon.

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

Because he has a rare combination of traits which allow him to operate effectively under extreme stress. You will begin to understand this after you've experienced moments of high personal stress where you were also asked to perform (or wanted in retrospect to perform).

Here is an example from a friend of mine who went to USC with me, you're in a store and someone comes to rob it with a gun, the police arrive before they finish, and they line you up with the other customers against a wall, wave a gun at you and threaten to kill one of you if the cops don't let them go. The police storm the store and shoot the perpetrator dead right in front of you. Outside, sitting in the back of an ambulance being checked out, the detective comes over and asks you "What were the other customers wearing?"

Now in this case the police thought the guy had an accomplice who was pretending to be a customer when it went wrong. My friend realized he could remember nothing of the event other than the end of the gun barrel, and that the noise of the gun shots when the police stormed the store made the take down some sort of sad silent movie. Under that level of stress he just stopped thinking. And the police assured him that was absolutely the normal way of things for people who had not be trained to deal with these situations.

The CEO of a company finds out that there biggest customer has just cancelled its "non cancellable" POs and the company is not going to make payroll if they don't do something in the next three weeks.

Being able to operate under stress, being able to make good decisions under stress, things that Elon has demonstrated a number of times (and yes sometimes the stressful event was his own fault but it didn't take him out of the game)

And getting people to do something well. Easy to say hard to do, they have to want to do it. As you manage more and more people, you will get to experience a diverse set of personalities and traits, the larger the group the more diverse and the harder it is to get all aligned. To be a successful leader in a large enterprise you have be able to get the best out of people, even when they may not like working with each other, to achieve a larger goal. Bigger the group, the harder that is to do effectively.

So you take him out of the equation, and the reset falters. Take Steve Jobs out of Apple and Apple headed for the toilet. Put him back, and it comes back from the dead to the largest company in the world. Sure that is the work of thousands, but the guy inspiring those thousands has a disproportionate effect.

Over your career you should evaluate your CEOs. Some will be great, and some will be horrible. Look at what the company accomplishes under great CEOs and what it accomplishes under horrible CEOs. Do that enough and you'll develop a healthy regard for Elon has pulled off in both Tesla and SpaceX.

barnabee• 11 years ago

1. He is working on things that are hard, rarely attempted and extremely important with potentially huge long term impacts, e.g.:

- Making cars electric (Tesla) and electricity renewable (Solar City) which if successful in a big way will help to combat climate change and provide a step towards a 'post [energy] scarcity' world.

- His desire and efforts to settle humans on Mars (SpaceX) are one of the best chances we have to become a multi-planet species which some consider a very important goal for humanity in and of itself and also provides some insurance for the long term survival of our species.

2. He does these things in a way that suggests he cares about the overall advances produced by his work in addition to the profitability and success of his companies (e.g. by releasing patents). This could just be clever marketing and rhetoric but it appears genuine and of benefit to the world in general.

3. He comes across as an engineer and a 'nerd' - whether by being honest about failures or getting the in jokes. Even if it's all for show, he pulls it off well enough to endear him to large sections a crowd like this one.

Few if any others with the money and capability to be successful are working on these problems (and even fewer look like they might be succeeding). Where it is happening, it's often hidden inside secretive 'skunk works' type organisations which deny us the opportunity to imagine the impact they may have and elevate those responsible to 'super man' status.

davidgerard• 11 years ago

Because he has a strong track record of achievement, and of leading others to achievement.

Apple wasn't all Steve Jobs either, except for the important ways in which, y'know, it was.

morgante• 11 years ago

Correction: Iron Man

Htsthbjig• 11 years ago

Because HE IS a superman, an extremely gifted individual for what he does.

Like a Messi in Soccer Michael Jordan in Basket,or Sampras, Federer in tennis, there are people that are-was really much better in their field than anybody else.

"but some people act like he is achieving all this on his own when he has thousands of people working for him who are among the best minds available."

This is exactly where is is a superman, managing other people, if you want to ignore that Elon wrote software on his own and made a ton of money from it as a kid.

I know that you never managed bright people because you consider it easy. You imply that if you left them alone they will do bright work.

E.g You could have geniuses writing code that are troublemakers, depressive or just so cynical that destroy the company from inside out.

Every single stereotype of person could be poisonous for the company if you don't manage it well.

The proof that this is not easy is that there are lots of big companies full of brilliant people that flop in the market.

I had seen lots of them, in fact my own experience tells me that incompetency at the top is the rule, not the exception.

ourmandave• 11 years ago

He's the "disruptive startup guy" that gives the great minds the cool stuff they want to work on. The electric cars, rockets, new battery technology, and who know what is yet be unveiled.

All under the banner of "We're going to f*cking Mars!"

So yeah, giant nerd cred.

college_rules• 11 years ago

This is a simple one, there is no one else in the world pushing harder and finding better performance results in pushing the limits of our human abilities. No one else is challenging the status quo as much or has offered more to humanity's longevity.

If the utilitarian, long-term survival of the human species is what one believes in...there is no one better than Elon Musk at this point moving the world forward.

Many people may argue my last point, but he gives hope and shows people that they can achieve what they dream of and that is more important than just about anything a single person is working on. Sure he has an entire team, but he is the leader and without him, these companies simply would not exist and would not be nearly as successful as they are.

It is a classic story of what a real leader looks like. In those respects, I cannot think of a better leader on the entire planet.

Ask HN: Why Do We Act Like Elon Musk Is Super-Man?

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