[marta_morena]

What does Elon Musk have to do with this? He is just someone who takes existing working things and tries to produce them in some slavery sweat shop conditions for cheap. There is essentially zero innovation involved here, even less so any "sci-fi".

[slfnflctd]

> essentially zero innovation

The innovation is in bringing these products to market and keeping multiple companies viable while doing so. NO ONE else has done the things he has. Put up or shut up. Edit: I'm not a fanboy and there are a lot of things about him I dislike, but the casual dismissals just irk me. If he's so unoriginal, you go do what he did.

[earenndil]

> If he's so unoriginal, you go do what he did

That's nonsense. Most people weren't lucky enough to sell a company for several hundreds of millions of dollars in the dot-com boom.

[WalterBright]

There are lots of centa-millionaires. None have done what Musk did.

Musk got his start with Zip2, programming it himself. Any competent programmer could have done that (but didn't). Each success he used to launch a much more ambitious enterprise.

When someone does that multiple times, it isn't luck. It's being good at it.

[danielg6]

Or to have parents to seed said company. Not sure why you got downvoted.

It’s easier to say “Go do what JK Rowling did” than to say “Go do what Elon did” lmao. I can write a fantasy series with $0. The same can’t be said necessarily for building companies.

[WalterBright]

Musk's first company he founded with his brother got $28,000 investment from his father. It's not an outlandish amount - less than the cost of a car.

[danielg6]

It’s still more than most people have and during a specific time in history. What you said doesn’t negate my point.

There’s more involved to starting a company than money. Such as your network. Your support system. Even your race and geographic location could play a factor. Luck, etc.

“You go be a 7-ft basketball player if you think it’s so easy!!!”

[WalterBright]

> It’s still more than most people have and during a specific time in history.

The freeways around here are gridlocked with cars costing more than $28,000.

> Such as your network. Your support system. Even your race and geographic location could play a factor. Luck, etc.

Oh phooey. I started my company with nothing more than an IBM PC. Nobody knew my race or location - it was mail order. Want to network? Use the internet. The D development community is all over the world.

On HN I regularly see extreme negativity and often outright hostility to all the opportunities all around us. What I enjoy about Musk is he likes to do things everyone else says can't be done.

[sgc]

And even that investment has been disputed - by Elon himself - as per the zip2 wiki page.

[WalterBright]

I got the figure from his biography. Regardless, given the shoestring conditions the company operated on, it could hardly have been a lot of money.

[samplatt]

While Musk should be rightly criticised for the ethically-questionable practices, we can at least be thankful that SOMEONE has both the drive (okay, sure, the ego) and passion for technological progress that results in the societal change we've seen so far.

Are there ANY other players at his level of household-name and wealth that are pushing as hard as he is, in as many directions? Gates has done fantastic work for decades but only using conventional methods, and basically everyone else is only doing R&D for their own purposes.

He's not some Tony-Stark/Tom-Swift type, but neither is he just another capitalist dick.

[scottlocklin]

He's simply a Howard Hughes type: every generation since Hughes has had one, and they're all backed by the military industrial complex and spooks. He'd have gone broke by now otherwise. None of his companies make money.