[jhloa2]

So he fosters competence with his incompetence? Seems like it would work just as well without him except for marketing. I'm impressed with Tesla and SpaceX as a whole, but from what I've heard, he hasn't been heavily involved with day to day decisions for more than a decade. From my perspective, his role is to be a hype man that consistently over promises and under delivers.

[CamperBob2]

Musk specializes at succeeding in fields where nobody else is seriously trying. He's never actually faced good old-fashioned market competition.

He's good at identifying ideas whose time has come, I'll give him that much credit. Ransacking the US Treasury wasn't on the radar, though, as far as I could see.

[ModernMech]

"He's never actually faced good old-fashioned market competition."

https://waymo.com/blog/2024/03/scaling-waymo-one-safely-acro...

Note the date. Tesla still doesn't have a taxi.

[CamperBob2]

Waymo is doing good work but it's still very much a science-fair project, just another side hobby of Larry and Sergey.

Self-driving taxis will be a "market" someday, but not yet, and when they are, there is no reason to think Musk will be a force to be reckoned with. (Well, no reason other than the regulatory capture that he's no doubt putting into place now, that is.)

[fragmede]

https://waymo.com/blog/2024/12/year-in-review-2024

from their blog that GP linked to, which says they gave 4 million rides in 2024, which seems like more than a "science faire side project", whatever that's supposed to mean.

[CamperBob2]

It means it's not the least bit responsive to my assertion that Musk has never faced any serious market competition.

[ModernMech]

How so? I can give Waymo money and they send a driverless taxi to pick me up in SF. That's a market. Can't do the same for Tesla despite Musk saying they'd have robotaxis for years now, they're so far behind they're not even an option. How do you reconcile that with what you're saying here?