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by mft_ 2237 days ago
That's a bit of an odd (knee-jerk?) challenge.

1. It's possible that a 48-year-old might have a different perspective, and potentially more wisdom, than his 17-year-old self did? I'm sure many people would make different choices in hindsight, if they could go back to being 15-17 yrs old.

2. It depends what you're trying to optimise for. Even if you are trying to plot a path to being a billionaire, following Elon Musk's path just won't work - huge numbers of other factors and luck involved. But...

3. ...I don't think he was only talking about optimising for personal financial success. It's clear from other comments in the video (on Warren Buffett, for example) that Musk doesn't see the field of investing (to put it broadly - essentially making money by shifting money around better than other people) as an especially worthy pursuit. I interpret this as Musk (rightly or wrongly) seeing his companies (which innovate, and create new products which mostly being some sort of benefit to the world) as morally superior to (in this case) law and investment banking. Indeed, if we were to try to optimise for some sort of worthier goal, it's reasonable that you'd want the best and smartest in the industries where they would have the greatest net benefit for the world.

1 comments

I dunno man, the wisdom of a 48 year old that names his seventh child 'X Æ A-12' may not be the best wisdom to follow.
It sounded more like his much younger partner wanted the name. It wasn't his idea originally. It's not a good idea to piss off a new mother.
It sounded more like his much younger partner wanted the name. It wasn't his idea originally
Is that "name" legitimately on the birth certificate or is he just memeing?
Likely it's real, but we'll see. Still, that is ... well ... a bit unusual.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52557291