[nicoburns]

I think that's precisely his point though. It's a waste to society to have someone like Musk working in finance where he would largely be working on financial gain for a small number of individuals. It would be much better for society if our smartest individuals were working on real productivity gains and value creation.

The problem is that a lot of the money is in things like finance and advertising. We could absolutely restructure our economy so that wasn't the case.

Musk makes a lot of grandiose statements, but he's spot on with this one.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> Musk makes a lot of grandiose statements, but he's spot on with this one.

But so what? A lot of people believe that. What I have never heard is a realistic plan for restructuring the economy that makes things like finance and advertising less lucrative.

Technology naturally leads to a "winner take all (or most)" economic system. When it's so easy to switch to competitors, platforms that are even a tiny amount better than their competitors can take all the mindshare of an industry.

In that environment of extreme economic concentration, fields like finance and advertising (which is really controlling marketplaces) will always be extremely lucrative. Haven't heard any good proposals on how to change that.

[nicoburns]

Well:

1. I would like to see strong progressive taxation that explicitly taxes concentration of wealth. This would be aimed at all large companies and wealthy individuals, and ultimately based on which actual human persons have legal control of the company such that it can't be gamed by creating shell companies, etc.

2. On top of this, I don't see why we can't explicitly put tariffs on things like financial or advertising transactions. Somewhat similar to a Carbon Tax, it would correct for costs to society caused by the activity. I'd be particularly keen on seeing measures that make it extremely expensive to do short-term trading, forcing investors to take a much more long-term view.

[cowmix]

Only through action and example will this start to happen. Before Musk kicked the car and rocket industry both in the nuts, there were hardly any startups in both sectors. Now, there are many in both.

As he's showing, it won't be easy. EVERYONE will try to kill the earnest attempts. For all of Musk's faults, he is trying to show there is another way and how to get there.

[hn_throwaway_99]

But again, so what? I mean, on one hand I totally agree with you. But on the other it doesn't change the fact that, societally, the risk-reward profile of things like finance and advertising are much better than other "bigger" pursuits.

I mean, as many others have pointed out, Musk had to get rich first in the finance world before he could get enough F.U. money to indulge his real passions.

[nicoburns]

> the risk-reward profile of things like finance and advertising are much better than other "bigger" pursuits.

That's precisely the problem that I (and Musk it seems) are pointing out. These activities shouldn't have better reward profiles.

[ryandrake]

But it's obviously not a waste, because many people who end up doing actually-valuable things initially go that path.

If I could hit the reset button and do it all over again, knowing what I know now, I would 1. get into the most prestigious undergrad school (Ivy if possible) that I could, rather than just lazily apply for one state school and go to it, 2. Still majored in some kind of computer engineering track, 3. immediately go into finance after school and pump money doing the standard two-to-three-year grind as an analyst, 4. get into the most prestigious MBA school I possibly could, 5. pump money doing the standard grind as an associate, then 6. basically do anything I want as a 30 year old with the millions I've saved.

The nice properties of this career path are:

- It doesn't take any outlier talent, just learn excel and do grunt work.

- It minimizes the need for luck (as opposed to starting a business or interviewing at Google). I would argue the risk adjusted expected value of this path is higher than other careers like starting a business where you need to multiply by a low probability of success.

- The contacts/network you make doing 1, 3, 4, and 5 mean you will always have easy access to capital, a huge advantage for someone who wants to do that "actually-valuable" thing. As opposed to some rando dude who was "3rd engineer from the left" at Amazon wanting to quit and start his own business, who will have to pitch and pitch and pitch to get a single investor to listen to him.

It would be nice if society was set up such that there were more "work hard" paths to financial security as opposed to risky paths, but we collectively can't shake this risk-reward caveman mentality, so people go into law or finance.

[nicoburns]

You say it's not obviously not a waste, then you list 5 steps that are essentially time-consuming hoops that you have to jump through before doing the value-generating activity. How are those things not a waste?

> It would be nice if society was set up such that there were more "work hard" paths to financial security as opposed to risky paths, but we collectively can't shake this risk-reward caveman mentality, so people go into law or finance.

This is precisely my point. If we set things up so that finance and MBAs weren't the things that lead to financial security then things would be much more efficient. Because people would be rewarded for the things that are creating value, rather than having to make choice between creating value and earning more money.

[ryandrake]

I think we're agreeing. By "not a waste" I mean in the sense of baking a cake: the time spent mixing eggs and sugar and waiting for the oven is not a waste. Going to work for Wall Street in order to build up capital is like preparing the ingredients.

[tasuki]

> The problem is that a lot of the money is in things like finance and advertising. We could absolutely restructure our economy so that wasn't the case.

How?

[aguyfromnb]

>It's a waste to society to have someone like Musk working in finance where he would largely be working on financial gain for a small number of individuals.

Where on earth does this narrative come from that Musk isn't working for financial gain?

The guy rammed a pay package beyond anything the world has ever seen past a weak board, and just took his first payment, $700MM+ in equity, which is far beyond what the company has ever earned in GAAP profits in its entire existence.

If he doesn't care about money, how do you explain that?

[nicoburns]

I'm not saying that he isn't motivated by his individual financial gain. I'm saying that the output of his work isn't for peoples' financial gain. He makes cars, not financial instruments. And cars, unlike financial instruments actually provide value to society.

I'm not saying that people don't care about money. I'm agreeing that they do. And thus that it is important that as a society we distribute our money to enterprises that are actually doing useful work. Precisely so that people who are money-motivated (which is basically everyone to a greater or lesser degree) will choose to work for these enterprises.

[cowmix]

He is working for financial gain, but as a means to get to the end of his goals:

1) Going to mars. 2) Sustainable energy / transport

[generatorguy]

The company has to continue to exist and do well for the equity to be worth anything.