| Thanks for the post! I guess there are a few things that might make these projects less of an unmitigated disaster than your analysis suggests: 1. Musk is clearly working off the common delusion that 'getting in at the ground floor' is a good idea. In reality, innovators and groundbreakers typically go bankrupt. Investors who buy the bankrupt company are the ones who typically profit off the expensive research and development, without the associated risks. 2. If you consider similar examples, for instance, the English railway system - early investors losing money is by no means a bad thing. Even if 'getting in early' is bad business strategy, it's good for society in general if moonshots get funded, even if they never turn out to be profitable. 3. These projects, while obviously unsound and based on false premisses, will typically produce useful technology, knowledge, or techniques - that can later be taken up by governments (as in the case of railways) or private investors. So I mean, sure, these projects are stupid and will end in stupidity. But they're also a better (from a human perspective) use of investor capital than pretty much everything else it could be spent on - more Walmarts, Amazon surveillance devices, or oil exploration - even if those things are certainly safer bets in terms of profits. |