[gammabetadelta]

Why do you hate arrogant people? Or more/less charitably confident.

He's playing a game and he's winning. While not all his tactics sit well with me, he's created immense value for the world. We want this man to keep investing and running capital. The alternatives are just so much worse.

[otterley]

Some people value character such as modesty, generosity, and kindness more than they value money. With great power comes great responsibility. The fact that there are enormously wealthy people such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates who provided similar economic value to society without always acting like jerks and demanding the spotlight all the time is an existence proof that other avenues of behavior are possible.

[gammabetadelta]

Bill Gates is not without his faults.

I agree that some people value modesty, I hope those people won't stop the next ego manic from trying to change the world.

I'd equally be happy if we could clone Buffett, Gates, and Musk. We get what we get. Unless you want to build a rocket, we should respect these life enhancing men, despite their character flaws.

[otterley]

Indeed, nobody is perfect. But we have the right to judge people who intentionally place themselves in the public spotlight and insist on leader-like behavior from them.

> I hope those people won't stop the next ego manic from trying to change the world.

You are describing a super villain here! I certainly hope we would try to stop them. “Advancement at any price” is how we end up with dictators and fascists.

[gammabetadelta]

Ha, it does sound like I am.

Maybe I'm naive, it doesn't seem like there's a desire for world domination. No political aspiration, unlike Sheryl Sandberg. Not implying she is evil or anything just highlighting another highly successful person.

[morpheuskafka]

> Why do you hate arrogant people?

At least in American English, the connotation of the word "arrogant" is so universally negative that it would only ever be used to express distaste for someone. Now whether he is arrogant or just (over)confident is another question but I think you acknowledge there is at least a good case for the former.

> We want this man to keep investing and running capital.

Why? If you ask the folks at the SEC, they probably wouldn't agree with you. From a public perspective, he hasn't exactly been great on regulatory compliance and market protection. From a shareholder/company perspective, he is a major liability. No company ever wants a CEO or any employee that picks fights with regulators, has a massively oversized media spotlight, and entangles the business in unrelated politics and personal fixations. That's textbook bad news for a business.

[gammabetadelta]

I can't believe this is a real take. I know this account is a bit new and slightly trolly.

I've used Tesla's products, so as a consumer I'm very grateful for it. I am not a direct investor in Tesla (ie., only via index funds).

The take I can't believe is the SEC should decide how capital gets allocated. Elon created a tremendous amount of value. Both for consumers and for investors. Does he sometimes do things that appear/are dumb. 100%. However, net-net he's been such crazy value add to humanity i can't see why we would want to take this man out.

Is the world really a better place where this man just sits on the beach and does nothing? I think not. You may counter and say, why doesn't he follow the rules like everyone else, well sometimes to get something special we need to make special exceptions.

I think i'm just trying to reconcile that your view is genuine given the age of your account. I'm sadden by this being a real take. We want creators. We want folks to build. It's hard to build to follow all the rules. There are soooo many.

[KerrAvon]

You say this as though creativity is the exclusive attribute of a billionaire who got really lucky during the dot-bomb era (and has since had to rely on government assistance for both of his “successes”).

There are thousands of people smarter than Musk in tech but who didn’t have his money and connections. Give his billions to those people and you’ll get a thousand Teslas.

[gammabetadelta]

I'm sure there are thousands of people smarter than Musk.

Intelligence is necessary but not sufficient. In fact, being a little too smart is quite detrimental to success.

I almost want to say intelligence is orthogonal to running a company but that wouldn't be true. You have to have some intellect, anything above that is not that important.

[IanCal]

> The take I can't believe is the SEC should decide how capital gets allocated.

That's literally its job, and they charged him with securities fraud didn't they?

[gammabetadelta]

The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market manipulation.

Their job is to regulate not allocate. They aren't here to pick winners or losers they only control who is allowed and not allowed to take money and from whom.

SEC protects investors cause investors from its perspective need protecting. It is like a father looking out for his kids. Some of us don't think we are kids that need protecting.

[IanCal]

> They aren't here to pick winners or losers they only control who is allowed and not allowed to take money and from whom.

That's the context of what was being replying to - the "who" part.

[rchaud]

> He's playing a game and he's winning.

This sounds like how people discuss celebrity beefs.