So what you're saying is that given the exact set of capital, connections, knowledge and market conditions that Musk initially had you wouldn't be able to make business decisions like he did because you're not intelligent enough?
Cannot answer for the parent commenter, but I know I wouldn't be able to make decisions like he did.
Just for one specific example: even if I was in his exact situation back then, I wouldn't mortgage out my house, ask friends and family for loans, cash out all of my savings, and then dump it all into my failing green energy startup during its "make it or break it moment". But he did, and none of what Tesla/SpaceX are presently would have been possible if he didn't make that decision.
And that's just one extreme thing that he did that I know for a fact I wouldn't have been able to do, even with the resources and everything else he had.
I doubt it. It takes intelligence to make the best of those resources to create a success.
What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success?
People want to pretend it's all luck and connections. I don't think it is, and I think people pretend that to make themselves feel like they could have done it if only they had the same resources.
> What's so unlikely to you about the idea that he's relatively intelligent and that's played a part in his success?
Nothing, I haven't even questioned his intelligence or said anything about him at all.
I just don't have a slightest clue in how to assess his intelligence and compare it to mine based on what I know about him, which makes me wonder what's making it so obvious to you. Especially when talking about things so blurry as "business decisions", since there are so many outside factors at play in any business that one's intelligence is never a single thing that determines business success.
Would you characterize Donald Trump as smarter than yourself? I mean, he made it all the way to President of the United States, have you ever been President? Hell, Einstein never was President, nor was he ever a Billionaire...
Trump was smarter than Einstein apparently. (Well, Einstein was German, bad example...
They never made it to president, or billionaire status though I don't think... It could be said Trump was more "successful"...
Does success === intelligence? God, I hope not or we're doomed as a species.
I think you're making a silly argument and you already know it. Einstein and Trump weren't working in the same fields so you can't compare their achievements.
Is Donald Trump smart? Well I think it's a non-partisan fact that he outsmarted the entire US political establishment in 2016. You decide how smart that is for yourself.
I don't. I believe that such immoral strategies are in fact easier to pull off than legitimate ones, that's why I called it "exact opposite of smart". It seems to me that it's you who's confusing "smart" with "successful".