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by wpietri
2728 days ago
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As one of the Long Now's early members, I definitely agree that markets are too short-sighted. But that has nothing to do with Musk's inability to retain key staff. And ongoing losses are definitionally unsustainable. Big experiments are only good if they need to be big. Otherwise, they're just wasteful. That waste a) raises risk unnecessarily, b) starves others good experiments of capital, and c) makes people less willing to experiment. Measured in those terms, I think Musk is particularly bad, and it's due to his need to showboat. The manufacturing philosophy, Lean (or TPS) was brought to America right in the building he occupies. But he has made a raft of mistakes, ignoring that history, consuming far more capital and creating more risk than needed to gain any particular learning that Tesla has produced. In contrast, look at how Toyota tackled the Prius. They also pioneered an entirely new category of eco-friendly car. But they did it quietly and patiently. It's now one of the world's top-selling cars, and sparked widespread interest in greener living. I don't think they've published their capital costs, but looking at their gradual production ramp-up, I suspect they were much better experimenter than Musk has been at Telsa. |
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I think we’re mostly in agreement regarding Musk himself, I’m no expert on the guy, mostly just casual reading when he makes the news. His showboating has definitely seemed kind of unnecessary, though if I’m being my most charitable, I would say he may be showboating in an effort to inspire people to think and act on these large problems we face. And if I’m at my most uncharitable I might say it’s all an ego stroke. I honestly have no idea where his thinking really is on that spectrum.
Regarding large risky projects, the three that come to mind from Musk are SpaceX, Tesla, and the hyperloop thing. I personally believe all three of these are absolutely worth the risk and that all three are in the general direction of major changes humanity needs to turn.
Making a sexy, luxury, sporty electric car ubiquitous will, in my opinion, be a major step forward. Think of how many suburban folks we could never convince to buy a Prius, solely because its not as sexy as the neighbor’s car, or the masses of hillbillies who don’t need but surely love their massive trucks. Many of those people sneer at a Prius driver much the same way a racist sneers at a brown immigrant. My initial instincts would be to see this sneering and say “Fuck em, they’re just stuck in their ways, they’ll come around when electric is their only option” but I suspect Musk’s approach of building a sexy, fast, and luxurious car will do more to onboard the hillbillies and vanity-prone-keep-up-with-the-Jones-suburbanites than a Prius ever will. Also his public twitter antics with Australia’s power grid was an interesting study on how to snatch the world’s attention and bring awareness to the technology.
SpaceX seems rather important as a concept, to me anyway. But I can definitely understand why some people wouldn’t mark it as a priority.
The hyperloop project is a direction I’d love to see humanity look towards. Not necessarily the specific idea of a hyperloop, but ffs, lets at least start exploring ideas for new modes of mid-distance transportation.
Like I said, I’m no expert on the guy, but I do appreciate a risk taker who takes the risk-taking-urge and channels the energy towards thinking big and attacking some our collective problems.
All of that said, I can definitely understand why he rubs some people the wrong way.