[krapp]

How do you know? It's entirely feasible someone other than Elon Musk could have founded a similar company with similar goals, the same or equivalent competent staff, and had the same success. There is no unique magic sauce that Elon brings to the table here, other than money.

[madaxe_again]

It’s feasible - but nobody did, and nobody has.

I get the dislike - his politics are pretty reprehensible - but it’s hard to argue with the results his businesses generally achieve.

What he brings to the table apart from money is an absolutely bull-headed madcap drive to make the infeasible into reality in the face of a chorus of naysayers, and that, I respect.

[krapp]

I'm not arguing against the results his businesses achieve, I'm arguing against the incessant drive for hero worship which ascribes those successes to him and him alone.

>What he brings to the table apart from money is an absolutely bull-headed madcap drive to make the infeasible into reality in the face of a chorus of naysayers, and that, I respect.

This is exactly my point. Elon didn't make the infeasible into reality, other people did, and could have done without him. And if his behavior at Twitter and Tesla are any indication, his "absolutely bull-headed madcap drive" has to be managed and worked around lest it do more harm than good.

[neverrroot]

It’s indeed his success primarily, it’s thanks to him primarily. And for that there’s a huge amount of praise that he has earned.

But it’s not due to him alone, but also due to the people that he managed to attract, hire and keep. Due to the people he passed the responsibility onto, and just as much due to the processes and philosophy he put in place. Alone having the people doesn’t guarantee success on this scale, you need the magic stuff, and the vision.

Nobody else did what he has done today with Starship or in the past with enough other things. And when it comes to costs and capabilities of Starship, nobody is even close. Not even close.

[cubefox]

The reason SpaceX is so much more successful than Blue Origin is Elon Musk. I'm sure Jeff Bezos is a great CEO, but Musk is clearly much better.

It can't be merely "other people" who are responsible for the success of SpaceX, because Blue Origin (and other rocket companies like ULA) also have "other people", but are not anywhere near as successful.

[dotnet00]

This argument is not convincing, considering that there were other private space companies, some with far more funding and far more support from NASA at their inception (eg Kistler Aerospace) which never got anywhere. That's why the joke when Musk expressed his desire to get into aerospace was "how do you become a millionaire in aerospace? Start as a billionaire".

Musk had, at the very least, the ability to pick good talent, enough commitment to try for one last launch even after burning through most of his fortune with no results and the ability to establish good culture for an R&D focused company. This is relatively well documented in books about the early days of SpaceX.

Theoretically someone else could have made the exact same decisions as him, but by that same logic Einstein should not be praised for his contributions to science because someone else could've theoretically had the same realizations.

[elevatedastalt]

That noise you keep hearing at night? It's the sound of goalposts being constantly shifted.

[HPsquared]

Depends on your opinion on the "Great Man Theory of History". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

[synecdoche]

Feasible but not likely.